Con men preying on elderly, group warns

An organisation working with elderly people is asking today them to be on the lookout for bogus sales personnel, tradespeople or builders, who may call to their doors.

It comes after the group, Friends of the Elderly say many people have contacted their association, claiming to have been conned into buying hearing aids for double the price they're actually worth.

Spokesperson for the group, Dermot Kirwan, said these con artists see the elderly as an easy target.

"Only deal with organisations you're familiar with, or you know something about, or organisations that have some kind of track record," he said.

"The older person is probably one of the last demographic portion of the country that has some small, regular income and there are maybe half a million people in the country aged 65+ and they are a very easily targeted audience."