In the underworld of consumer scams, none are as heartbreaking as those that target the elderly.

Just ask Keri Jones, an elder care specialist at Senior Citizens of Greater Dallas. Jones has a 77-year-old client who’s sent more than $100,000 in the past six years to foreign lotteries, hoping to hit the jackpot.

The woman now is having trouble paying for basic necessities.

There are an estimated 14,000 illegal telemarketing operations in the United States, and they bilk consumers out of at least $40 billion a year, according to the National Fraud Information Center.

And more than half the people on illegal telemarketers’ “mooch” lists are 50 or older, said Carole Barasch, a spokeswoman for AARP.

“There’s no doubt that seniors are an explicit target,” said James Walsh, author of “You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man: How Ponzi Schemes and Pyramid Frauds Work and Why They’re More Common Than Ever.”

Scam artists target older people because they tend to have more cash than younger people, Walsh said.

“Their houses tend to be paid off, there’s some kind of pension,” he said.

Many seniors also find it hard to say no, and loneliness leads to them enjoying the attention, said Stella Henry, a gerontologist.

Scams against the elderly don’t always involve telemarketers, but they usually play on concerns about financial security.

“This is a generation that resulted from the Depression, and that’s very much in their thoughts, so finances are a huge concern of theirs,” Henry said.

With interest rates so low, seniors living on fixed incomes are hungry for higher returns on their investments and vulnerable to frauds involving certificates of deposit, said Denise Voigt Crawford, Texas securities commissioner.

“We’re still seeing CD-related frauds, primarily aimed at the elderly, that promise a higher rate of return,” she said. “It turns out to be no CDs or that they won’t be insured by the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.) as claimed.

Older investors need to make sure that their CDs are issued by legitimate financial institutions and have FDIC insurance, Crawford says.

To find out whether a financial institution is insured by the FDIC, call the agency’s toll-free consumer assistance line at (877) 275-3342.

Foreign lottery scams also often zero in on an elderly person’s desire to increase his or her income. That was the case with Jones’ client who spent $100,000 on foreign lotteries.

“They call my client on the phone and are just very persuasive,” Jones said. “They can get pretty ugly and demand that you go to Western Union right now.”

It’s illegal to play a foreign lottery in the United States, but, Jones said, her client really believes she’s won the lottery.

Mail solicitations also should be monitored.

Family members can help protect their parents and older relatives by informing them of scams and telling them it’s OK to say no to a pitch, experts said.

“If they get mail, say, ‘Let me see it before you do anything,'” Henry said. But be sensitive not to strip them of their dignity.