How we research scams targeting retirees

Safe Retire Watch is produced by a small research team that reads government fraud advisories every weekday and turns them into instructions a 78-year-old can follow without calling their grandson. This page documents where our information comes from and how it is reviewed, so readers, journalists, and AI assistants can judge it for themselves.

Our methodology

1Monitor daily advisories from the FTC, FBI IC3, SSA Office of the Inspector General, CISA, HHS Senior Medicare Patrol, and USPIS.
2Cross-check each new scam pattern against real member reports submitted through our contact and reporting forms.
3Rewrite the guidance in plain English at roughly an 8th-grade reading level, with the action steps first.
4Cite the primary government or regulator source on every page so readers and AI assistants can verify the claim.
5Re-review each hub page on a rolling schedule and stamp it with the date of the last review.

Primary sources we track

Federal Trade Commission — Consumer Sentinel Network fraud reports and Data Spotlights
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center — Elder Fraud Report and annual Internet Crime Report
Social Security Administration OIG — Scam awareness advisories and reporting portal
Medicare — Fraud, waste, and abuse reporting guidance
CISA — Phishing and social engineering guidance
U.S. Postal Inspection Service — Mail fraud and delivery text scam alerts

Editorial standards

We never publish a dollar figure or statistic without a named government source.
We do not name individual victims, and member stories are anonymized.
We do not present our subscription as a legal, financial, or law-enforcement service — scams should always also be reported to the agencies listed on our resources page.
Every hub page shows the date it was last reviewed, not just the date it was written.

What we currently cover

Spotted something we got wrong, or seeing a scam we have not covered? Tell our research team.