Some types of scams are particularly embarrassing for elder Americans, said Thomas Halloran, president of Voya Financial Advisors. For example, romance scams involve someone pretending to be attracted to a victim, cultivating trust with the pretense of affection.

“As people get older, they tend to get lonely,” said Hallorran. “That’s a lot of it.”

Halloran noted that romance scams are often first recognized by an astute advisor. One Voya client, a man in his 80s, wanted to wire $20,000 to two different women in the Philippines who claimed that they wanted to come back to the U.S. The advisor asked a series of questions that revealed that the women were scamming the client.

Seniors are also particularly susceptible to imposter scams—callers or people online posing as tech support personnel or representatives of the Social Security Administration or the IRS. These scammers have become more sophisticated over time, panelists said.

“These scams have been really popular this year,” said O’Brien. “Not many people are falling for it, but many of the people who are are losing their entire life savings.”

People of all ages—especially older Americans—are falling victim to investment scams. Scams can often be recognized because they sound too good to be true, said Kathleen Johnson, a senior practice management consultant with BNY Mellon Pershing. Any investment that purports to offer high returns with low risk is most likely a scam, she added.

Johnson pointed out that victim of these scams aren’t necessarily suffering from dementia or cognitive decline.

“Even someone at full mental capacity can be sucked in,” she said.

In some cases, the person committing the fraud may be a family member or caretaker who would normally be on a senior citizen’s first line of defense against financial predators. In others, clients are falling victim to the “grandchild scam,” said Johnson, where a fraudster will pose as a relative in distress asking for money.

O’Brien said that it’s rare for victims and their families to recover assets lost to fraudsters.