Seniors found vulnerable to fraud, deceptive ads

A study on the behavior of consumers aged 60 or older found an urgent need to better shield the group from consumer fraud as China seeks to tap their fast-growing purchasing power to boost growth.

The report on senior consumers, released on Tuesday, said fraud and deceptive advertising are used by some tourism and healthcare companies that depend heavily on those customers.

The seniors studied were found to be vulnerable to those tactics due to having less timely access to information and insufficient media literacy. The report was compiled by a group of researchers from the China Research Center on Aging, the China Association on Aging and the tech giant Tencent, whose messaging tool WeChat has more than 80 million users over age 50.