LOS ANGELES — Whether it’s sorting through junk mail or checking her bank accounts, longtime Los Angeles resident Madeline Sprints always keeps an eye out for scams.

“I know what I charge because I don’t charge a whole lot,” she said. “I really try to be vigilant.”

Especially after she fell victim to a scam last year. Sprints said it happened while she was in the parking lot of a local grocery store and a woman walked up to her car, asking for directions.

“So she opened the door to the car, put a map over my purse and her partner went through my purse and took three of my credit cards,” she said.

Sprints said at the time, she didn’t realize that was happening because she was so focused on helping the woman.

“They closed the door and then I started to back out and I wasn’t even out of the parking lot and they had tried to charge $10,000 on three different cards,” she said.

Sprints said she called her bank right away and canceled her credit cards.

Now, she’s made it a mission to warn others. She is part of a community group called Stop Senior Scams Acting Program, which uses skits to educate older adults about senior fraud and ways to avoid it. Founder Adrienne Omansky said seniors who are scammed are often more comfortable talking to their peers about it.

“A lot of times, they are very embarrassed to talk to their family members and especially their children because they don’t want their children to think that they might be losing some of their mental capacity,” she said.

Omansky said they are focused on educating others about in their performance is the grandparent scam, when a caller claims to be a relative in distress, often pretending to be a grandchild and asking for money to be sent right away.

“We have a way that we’ve educated the seniors on what to do if they get that call that their grandchild or a friend is in trouble,” she said. “We tell them to take five minutes and tell two people. We’re using that because we want them to think about it.”

Scams against older adults are on the rise, according to a new report from the FBI, which found adults over the age of 60 lost $3.4 billion in fraud schemes in 2023, an 11% increase from 2022.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Brett Chabot said romance scams are one of the most common, which is when criminals use dating apps and social media to befriend their victims and ask for money over time.

“Sometimes we see victims whose spouses have passed away, so they are living home alone. The kids are out of the house. They may have family nearby but they are home alone a lot so they are more susceptible to somebody reaching out to them on a dating app or some other social media platform to start this conversation,” he said. “Then they build up the trust because it goes months before they start asking for money so the victim is going to think, wait a second, this person is my friend, he’s not a scammer.”

Chabot said tech support scams are also popular, when criminals claim to offer legitimate technical support service in order to access a victims’ device and sensitive information.

“One of the things we tell people is never respond to unsolicited contact,” he said. “If you get a text message from a number you don’t know, don’t respond to it."

If a person is scammed, the FBI advises reporting it to one of their local offices or the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Sprints said she is saddened by what happened to her but is more vigilant than ever and hopes to help other seniors protect themselves.

“You have to really step back and say, you know what? I have to call somebody and find out if this is OK,” she said.