Risky Behavior: Assessing Fraud Risk and Avoidance Among Hawaii Adults Age 18-Plus

This AARP phone survey of 700 Hawaii adults ages 18 and older was conducted to collect their experience and opinions around various kinds of fraud – investment fraud, identity theft, impostor scams – and the actions they took to avoid fraud and report it.

Key findings include:

While many Hawaii adults indicate they take certain precautions to avoid scams and fraud that steal personal identification information, the data show that others could be vulnerable to these crimes:

Over half (53%) of Hawaii adults say they own securities stocks or bonds.

• Most (83%) indicate they are just somewhat knowledgeable, not that knowledgeable, or not at all knowledgeable about financial investing.
  
  
• Among the quarter (26%) of those who have hired a financial advisor, over half (57%) say they did not check the background of that financial professional.
  
  
• The data also show that many adults in Hawaii do not check their credit with the major credit bureaus (74% rarely or never) and most (73%) do not have a credit freeze placed on their credit reports with credit bureaus.
  

The survey also found that:

• One in five (20%) of adults in Hawaii say they left a purse or wallet in their car during the week prior to taking this survey.
  
  
• Another quarter (25%) left a backpack in the car.Over four in ten say they received email or phone call from someone posing as a computer repair person seeking personal identification information (45%) or a lottery representative (43%) requesting money be sent before the respondent can claim the lottery winnings.   
  

The sample utilized RDD landline and cell phone records. The sample was weighted to the 2013 estimates provided by the U.S. Census Bureau by age and gender to reflect the population of residents in the state of Hawaii age 18-plus. The sample was also weighted on population by island.  For more information, contact Jennifer Sauer at JSauer@aarp.org.