In this digital age, fraud has become more of a lucrative industry than at any point in the past. This is more than just a growing set of statistics, it is a harmful reality faced by many people around the world on an ongoing basis.
As such, the pace and development of new threats are hard for governmental and even banking initiatives to keep up with. For this reason, families are increasingly turning to educating the most vulnerable, commonly the elderly relatives who are most likely to fall for developing scams.
Yet you don’t have to be unfamiliar with tech to struggle with cybersecurity issues or the growing sophistication of threats offered. As AI develops, we can expect to see more refined and personalized fraud attempts develop. The FCC has recently banned AI-powered voice robocalls for even legitimate purposes, understanding that this threat has the chance to grow out of control.
Let’s explore the various methods families are using to increase understanding among their older relatives, helping them combat the difficulty of advancing fraud:
Explaining Common Scams & Fraud Tactics
It’s important to keep your relative up to date on the common scams or difficulties they might experience. For example, AI voices have been replicated and used in telephone scams. The fraudster will generate an AI-representative voice and ask for money or change. So far, this has only applied to influencers or those with extensive footage of themselves online, but as AI develops we may expect these measures to become easier, more accessible, and require less substance.
Explaining the basics of fraud tactics, for example, that you’ll never ask for anything except for in person, or if you have a passphrase to confirm one another’s validity if calling from an unknown, you can help sidestep the unsurety of an impromptu call. Note that this issue has already been prevalent in random phone scams, as sometimes an elderly relative can be fooled by a similar voice or one masked by a seemingly faulty phone line.
Protect All Accounts
It’s essential to make certain you protect all the accounts you have access to. This includes your own, and those operated by your elderly relative. To begin with, multi-factor authentication (MFA) applied to all accounts is key. Using different passphrases for each platform is key also, and using password managers like Bitwarden, itself secured with MFA, can prevent one account from compromising all the others.
This way, you can avoid your account being overtaken, which could fool your relatives if you regularly message them over apps. Protecting their accounts can also help them avoid suffering difficulty where possible.
The Protocol Of Following Links
As messaging apps now offer the ability to link and embed URLs, unfortunately, harmful redirects can cause well-meaning people to give their information to websites. A common tactic flourishing in the United Kingdom in 2023 involved posing as a delivery courier service, notifying the recipient that they missed a parcel, and rebooking delivery, with a small delivery fee, online.
It’s important to teach your relative that under no circumstances should they click on any links sent to their email address or their phone number unless offered by a verified recipient. Teaching them to learn the URL and double-check the email address is a vital skill because it can help them identify verified senders, for example, an online shopping marketplace like eBay, from a false or spoofed sender. You can always ask them to send you the query for confirmation if they really need it.
Teaching Safe Online Behavior & Password Management
We tend to think that only children can benefit from online safety training, but there are just as many threats online for the elderly on top of that. For that reason, teaching them valuable tools such as online using verified websites (such as those listed on the top SERPs of Google), and managing their passwords appropriately is key.
Moreover, only using verified browsers like Edge, Chrome, Safari or Firefox is key, no matter what download prompts they receive. You can also teach them how to keep verified websites in their bookmarks bar on both their laptop/tablet or smartphone to keep their digital behavior well-organized.
Encouraging Regular Monitoring Of Bank Statements & Credit Reports
Unfortunately, it’s true that you won’t always be aware of fraud when it happens unless your bank’s anti-fraud practices or systems detect it and inform you ahead of time. But it’s also true that you may notice something off if you check your credit reports and bank statements regularly.
This way, you can immediately contact your financial provider and let them know when you don’t recognize a charge. Many have teams that will process remedial steps to help you reclaim your lost funds, or at least secure your account from that point on.
Moreover, you can utilize tools that provide you the chance to see if information, like your debit card info or personal info, is being sold on the dark web. Google One and Mozilla utilities can offer this, but these are only the most popular tools to do so, and many banks are rolling out these systems in kind.
Discussing The Importance Of Privacy Settings On Social Media
There’s a great deal of social engineering involved with the most sophisticated scams, and these are often how elderly people are targeted. Elderly individuals are the most likely to have larger families and to trust their families implicitly, which is why, as discussed above, fraudsters can use that information against them.
Discussing the importance of privacy settings on social media is an essential element of defending your relative against these outcomes. How much information is publicly accessible? On platforms like Facebook (which is popular among the elderly), you can use the privacy settings feature to see how your profile looks against people with different accounts, or not logged in at all.
Make sure all friends are vetted on their list, that they don’t post pictures without clear privacy settings, that personal information such as their address will be scrubbed clean from the online platform, and essential information, like the exact times they may be leaving for vacation, are no longer hosted on the platform.
You may have to undergo a form of social media training with them, showing them the various utilities they can use and explaining the tagging system, but doing so can prevent an innocent mistake leading to difficulty.
A Standard Of Transparency
It’s good to keep up regular communication with your elderly relative to find out about any possible scams or targeting issues they’ve been exposed to. For example, talking through the latest WhatsApp scams can help them understand what to look for and how to block and report contacts if they try to target them.
By keeping up regular conversation with your loved one you can more easily identify issues. Perhaps they’ve been offered a cheap driveway renovation from those who gave them a direct quote on the job, and you know this sets off red flags thanks to its uninvited proposition. Being able to remain communicative and help manage the affairs of your elderly relative will allow a more confident outcome.
Encouraging regular communication with your loved one about financial matters can help you identify any difficult patterns or unwanted trends that may warrant a further look. That’s not to say you have to manage their affairs for them nor even imply you want to, but it can’t hurt to provide the second look they need.
Exploring Options For Identity Theft Protection Services
Volunteer-based elderly socializing services and residential communities will often focus on helping their members avoid financial scams, knowing that these are the people most vulnerable to them.
Identify theft protection services might be in the form of a mail-carrying service that helps suspend suspicious correspondence. You might open a PO box in their name so you can sort through and provide mail where necessary, to ensure unwarranted fliers or unsolicited offers are filtered out.
Moreover, banks will often be able to add vulnerable markers to certain accounts that may be operated by elderly individuals, and so organizing this kind of categorization can help fraud alert services pay special attention to certain accounts where available. This can strike a nice middle ground between providing the autonomy your loved one deserves, while still providing the kind of safety they need.
To conclude, it’s important to be very, very clear about fraud and security risks and their developing prominence around the world. It will take time, effort and management to put all the pieces in place, but doing so can help alleviate weeks or even months of worry or financial roadblocks as they try to sort through issues.
Moreover, you’ll be able to buck the trend of elderly relatives being the most targeted, because nothing helps resist scammers and fraudsters like a well-informed populace that knows what to look for. That way, perhaps your elderly relative can teach a friend, and from there the secure network continues for the better.
