Online scammers targeting older Pennsylvanians for millions of dollars
Pennsylvania one of hardest hit states for scams, losing $76M in 2025
Rep. Ryan Bizzarro February 25, 2026 | 1:30 PM
HARRISBURG, Feb. 25 – As older Pennsylvanians navigate rising costs and inflation, another threat to their financial security has been growing at an alarming rate. Bad actors are using social media and artificial intelligence to target senior citizens and scam them out of billions of dollars. The House Majority Policy Committee convened a hearing Wednesday to hear from victims and experts about the need to protect seniors from online scams, hosted by Rep. Brian Munroe (D-Bucks).
Federal data shows in 2024, older Americans reported $12.5 billion in losses from internet scams, a 25% increase from the year before. Here in Pennsylvania, more than 4,000 scam-related complaints were filed last year as residents lost more than $76 million to scammers in 2025 alone. That number is likely larger as many scams go unreported because victims feel embarrassed.
“This is a deeply personal issue to me as we discovered a few years ago that my own mother had been defrauded out of close to $40,000 over the span of two years. The amount of pain and financial damage these scammers are causing older adults and their families is unconscionable,” said Rep. Brian Munroe, who hosted Wednesday’s hearing. “There has been inaction on this issue for too long. We must find a way to protect seniors while holding criminals and social media platforms accountable.”
Victims are targeted through cloned or fake accounts, friend requests, direct messages, targeted advertising, and groups/community pages. Testifiers say scammers are deliberately exploiting the structure of social media platforms to identify targets, build trust, and take money on a massive scale in Pennsylvania and across the country.
Kate Kleinert of Glenolden and Bill Moyer of Allentown testified at Wednesday’s hearing to share their stories related to online scams. Kleinert, a widow for 11 years at the time, lost more than $40,000 to a scammer on Facebook posing to be a love interest. Meanwhile, after moving into a new home, Moyer began receiving visits from people looking to pick up their new puppy after paying someone on Facebook. More than a dozen times, the scammer took money from people across the country and sent them to Moyer’s address to find nothing. They both say more accountability from social media platforms is needed.
“Facebook and Google have let this stuff go on for years and years despite all their power to track what people engage with. It almost seems like they want to make it easy for people like me to be targeted for scams,” Kleinert said.
Moyer added, “I stood in my own yard and witnessed the aftermath of what happens when a billion-dollar platform ignores what is happening and fails to protect trusted users. Those people who showed up at my house — hopeful, then heartbroken — deserved better.”
Recent advancements in artificial intelligence have made scams more difficult to detect and allow criminals to create more convincing schemes. Generative artificial intelligence tools on the market are creating highly convincing text, images, and even deepfake audio or video that can impersonate loved ones, trusted figures and institutions with alarming realism.
Testifiers recommended that lawmakers work to pass legislation that would require social media companies to implement stronger default privacy settings, thoroughly vet all advertisers, and empower users to report fraud through easy-to-use tools. They also say educational programs to raise awareness of these scams could help prevent more people from losing money.
“Older adults deserve to live with dignity, not fear or vulnerability. As online scams continue to grow more sophisticated, we have a responsibility to protect seniors from financial exploitation and emotional harm,” said House Majority Policy Chairman Ryan Bizzarro. “That means implementing more safeguards on social media and holding these companies responsible for allowing fraud to run rampant on their platforms.”
Wednesday’s hearing was held in the Pennsylvania Capitol complex and a livestream is available here. Testifiers include Kate Kleinert, a scam victim from Glenolden; Bill Moyer, a scam victim from Allentown; Mike Crossey, President of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Retired Americans; and Yosef Getachew, Senior Policy Counsel at Reset.Tech. Testimony submitted for the hearing can be found here.
Information about this and other House Democratic Policy Committee hearings can be found at pahouse.com/policy.