When it comes to fraud , the stereotype of the bumbling, overly trusting senior who hands their savings over to a Nigerian prince is just that: a stereotype.

Millennials are a generation of digital natives who grew up with computers, smart devices and the internet in their homes and schools. But that doesnt mean younger millennials are any smarter when it comes to avoiding web or phone scams. In fact, 20-somethings are nearly three times as likely to fall victim to a scam as seniors, according to a 2018 report by the Federal Trade Commission .

How is this possible? Younger adults have a few habits that make them more susceptible to fraud, according to Frank Abagnale Jr., a con-man-turned-security-consultant who is the subject of Steven Spielbergs 2002 box office hit Catch Me If You Can and author of the new book Scam Me If You Can .

A Generation Of Oversharers

In doing the five years of research for this book, I was shocked to find that actually, millennials get scammed more often than seniors, Abagnale said.

Last year, the FTC collected more than 1.4 million fraud reports, and people reportedly lost money in 25% of those cases an increase of 38% over 2017.

Though its tough for some to believe, younger people reported losing money more often than older adults, a trend that the FTC has been seeing for several years. In 2018, 43% of people in their 20s reported a loss to fraud, while only 15% of people in their 70s did.

The reason it happens to young people more often? A lot of it has to do with their willingness to share personal details online.

According to Abagnale, scammers have become so much more sophisticated in the time since he was conning when all he had at his disposal was a telephone. Today, they have so much technology and data to work with that its easy to make people believe theyre the bank, or the Social Security Administration or the U.S. Treasury. And that comes from social media, he said.

For example, seemingly innocent Facebook quizzes are an easy way to get users to share personal details publicly. And millennials are the most likely to share content on Facebook in general, according to data collected by Business Insider .

If you tell me on Facebook where you were born and your date of birth, thats 98% of me stealing your identity, said Abagnale, who opts not to have a Facebook profile at all. Thats really all I need to know: those two pieces of information.