View this video here.

[GRAPHIC: Fox Report]

ANCHOR: Shattered dreams during the golden years. When it's finally time to retire, you just want to relax, enjoy and, and sit back and enjoy life, but an alarming number of older Americans are actually finding themselves in the middle of a financial nightmare. Their nest eggs are dwindling, and many are being driven to do what was once unthinkable, file for bankruptcy. Phil Keating has more on one couple's story and more on this disturbing trend.

ALFREDO VARGAS: I tried to do what it was to let this happen.

PHIL KEATING: What's now happened to Alfredo and Carmen Vargas has, in their words, taken away their dignity. Retired and in their 70s, they've had to file for bankruptcy.

ALFREDO VARGAS: All my saving were gone, my 401(k), my IRA. In five years, everything disappeared.

PHIL KEATING: Plus $30,000 in credit card debt and hospital bills and a son who was supporting them who's now lost his job.
PATRICK CORDERO: [Foreign language]

PHIL KEATING: Bankruptcy attorney Patrick Cordero says, the Vargas' are far from unique.

PATRICK CORDERO: I've seen the change probably double from last year to this year. I would say probably 23% of my clients are over the age of 60.
[GRAPHIC: Total Bankruptcy Filing 1991 - 2007 75+ +400%]

PHIL KEATING: According to AARP, the number of Americans over 75 who filed for bankruptcy has quadrupled compared to 1991.
[GRAPHIC: 55+ +300%]

PHIL KEATING: And for those 55 and older, bankruptcy filings have tripled. Bankruptcy experts blame several factors. Last year's stock market crash led to a lot of retirement plans disappearing, plus with high health care costs and people living longer these days, now an average of 78 years, well that contributes to senior citizen credit debt.

FEMALE VOICE: It alarms a lot of people to see what is essentially their parents and their grandparents, right when they were getting ready to go into their golden years instead going into bankruptcy court.

PHIL KEATING: For the Vargas' their financial crisis has also caused so much stress they're being treated for it.

ANFREDO VARGAS: But I never think anything happen like this before. Never. And I thought I was in the best place in the world. But it's got everybody.

PHIL KEATING: But for now, they still have their home and, of course, each other. In Miami, Phil Keating, Fox News.

ANCHOR: Have you ever gotten ready for a date...

LAW OFFICES OF PATRICK L. CORDERO
FOX NEWS REPORT BK