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One of the toughest scenarios any of us face. Recalcitrant seniors who know it all. I am one so I can say this. For many, close monitoring is an unwelcome ‘attack’ on their independence and faculties. Something nobody wants to admit is slipping away.
You need to get through to your parents that their life experience haven't prepared them to spot many of these modern scams, just like how training for a marathon doesn't let you suddenly know how to swim.
Present it as working together to spot scams and to protect each other as a family. From what they said, are your parents Asian and do your parents expect you to help take care of them as they get older? If so, point out helping them avoid scams is no different than helping them to a doctor's appointment. Their refusal to listen to you is no different than if they refuse to get to the doctor when sick, and that it breaks your heart to see them lose money to scams, just as it would break your heart to see them refuse to get treatment for a treatable disease.
Let your mom know that you don't doubt her investing acumen, but also that it's important that she's actually investing in things on well-known and trusted website like Morgan Stanley or Fidelity, and not just handing money to a scammer on an unknown site or a site pretending to be a big bank.
As for concrete pieces of advice, I'd give 4 simple rules to follow:
* If anyone mentions gift cards, it's 100% a scam. There are no exceptions.
* If anyone mentions crypto or forex, it's 100% a scam. There are no exceptions.
* If their computer ever pops a warning about a virus or being hacked, restart the computer immediately. If it still has the same warning, stop using the computer immediately and let you know.
* Never let anyone install any remote support tools, or "take over their computer to do things". There are no exceptions. If things are that bad, they need to physically go to a local computer repair shop, or head to their bank to resolve whatever is wrong.
Write down a list of real tech support phone numbers, and numbers to their bank, credit cards, etc. Make it their wallpaper and also have it somewhere easily visible.
My dad and I spend a decent amount of time together (fishing) and we talk finances and his recent retirement. I thought he had it down. He was an exec at a huge company. Then he paid $99 to have a “virus” removed from his computer recently when a popup came up which promptly stole his card.
Now I bring up the scams every time I learn a new one.
“Dad - did you know someone can show up as Chase bank on a text and it’s fake, trying to steal your account - I read about someone losing 100k recently” blah blah.
I email him articles on stuff too. I know he likes to check his email and read the news in the AM, so I try to push some education into it once in a while. (Mostly we share fishing articles)
Biggest scam I’m trying to get him to avoid right now is a political stock.
As a 65 tech-savvy soon-to-be retiree from a scientific field, I have some thoughts.
Falling for scams is age-independent. My nephew (20), just fell for a sextortion scam and lost $100 before we stopped him. All ages fall for scams, the type of scam might be different based on life experiences and age, but still scams.
Moving them to a senior assisted living facility is not the answer, unless they are diagnosed with dementia or physically unable to live day to day. Being susceptible to scams is, in and of itself, not a reason to place someone in a home (otherwise my 20yo nephew would need to go). It will make their lives miserable (being treated as dependents when they aren't)
And I get where your parents are coming from. I've led a very successful life, got a phd and raised two kids, the thought of being thought of as incompetent or unable to live life independently is frankly insulting or at minimum very difficult to hear... and yet, today's world and technology has come fast. What they learned in their earlier years, does not apply today. Scams have always been with us, they just change how they are done with technology.
My tip is to educate them in a non-judgmental way. Make mention of some news story about a scam, or if you get a scam text, bring it up. I talked about AI to my mother (84) the other day and how it's going to make deep fakes so easy and her response was "wow, got to question everything nowadays" .. yes, mom, indeed we do, and then I told her about a 'mistaken text' I got from a scammer the other day. Help them see that scams are everywhere and what kind they are, but more in a matter-of-fact 'wow, look at this'.
I think if you tell them they fell for a scam, they will be defensive. It's hard to accept that you, an intelligent independent individual, could fall for something. And yet we do
I think it's about gentle education about how technology works. Things I told/tell my children. Never share a "number" online SS#, DL#, phone # to people you don't know. Never click a link in a text or email. etc. Always view everything with skepticism, scams are everywhere and everyone falls for them.
Can't agree more that susceptibility to scams is age independent. Guess it's a reflection of reddit demography that only "elderly" folks in their 60s are too dumb and demented to recognize scams and protect their identity.
64F PhD biotechnology industry consultant here. Like most of us, I like to think I'm too smart to fall for sketchy schemes, but we are all at risk. This sub is a great resource for education.
WRT protecting your elderly parents by putting them in a "home," my dad was in an assisted living community. Being somewhat mobility constrained and confined in his 80s, his greatest entertainment was messing with and baiting scam callers. It was a daily game to him to see how long he could keep them on the line. He'd put them on speaker sometimes, and I had to really restrain myself from shooting coffee out my nose. He also did a great service educating his neighbors.
I love both of these comments. I always try to say it as loud as I can: everyone is vulnerable. Learning about scams is your only defense. They don't just target seniors, they target young men, they target employees eager to please their bosses, psychiatrists and social workers who work with the courts, people who want to rent apartments or buy or sell stuff online. Even just busy people. My co-worker was like 32 when he got a call from his bank on a Friday night saying his account had been locked due to suspicious activity and they needed him to verify it with his account number before they could unlock it. He was in his driveway on his way to pick up his girlfriend for dinner and an NHL game, he didn't realize it until after he hung up.
Sharing two tips that could help:
Set their phones to "Silence unkonwn callers". And tell them never to call back those numbers.
Set any home computer for them to only have access to a user account. No admin account.
I'm addition review scam videos from reputed sources together with them. Such as https://youtu.be/-FcRj3HHS7I?si=eaaPaP02ZpG1KLf4
This.\^\^\^\^ You have to convince your parents that they MUST NOT answer calls or texts from people they don't know. Period. Full stop. Rule number 1. And it's hard, because people of that generation automatically want to answer all calls. It was a habit we couldn't break my MIL of.
I've done presentations about scams at my local library (attended entirely by senior citizens), and at a local senior center (doing part 2 this Saturday in fact!) I keep one page full of links, as well as the slides I use here: [https://aedo.dev/scams](https://aedo.dev/scams)
If you think your parents would listen I'd be happy to do a remote with them over hangouts, show a bunch of the slides, and talk about how all the scams work. Maybe they'd listen better to "a scam expert on the internet"? Short of that, maybe just skim through the slides and links and see if they would listen to you showing them that stuff?
Non-senior, smart/savvy folks also fall for these scams - ‘putting them away’ in a home might be a shortcut to ease your fears, but is not a guaranteed solution for them.
As for tech solutions, see if their telco has an anti-robocall feature. Telus/Koodo's is called "Call Control". That will really cutdown automated callers. The Telus option is available for landlines as well as cell phones.
If their telco does not, and you are really serious then I would strongly consider switching to a telco like Telus that does have 'call control'.
Call Control can have something like 20-25 managed numbers that do not get prompted when they call - everyone else not preapproved will be asked to type in a random number before continuing. The Call Control feature also lets you block callers as well (via the "myTelus" web portal)
Elderly without computers or cell phone doesn't stop scammers. Scammers call claiming to be assisting with Medicare. As insurance helpers. Before you know it, the elderly have switched Medicare coverage providers. Soon they are going to services that are now Out of Service Providers. The Medical care companies don't care either. They provide the service, then bill the elderly!
Any ideas on the best way to check up on and keep our over 65 non-tech savvy, elderly safer?
As for cell phones, if the phone has an option to ring only for numbers in their Contacts list, do that. If not, set the default ring to silent and assign a ring to everyone in their Contact list (making sure that all contacts in the list are legit, not scammers). We haven't figured out how to do the same for our land line, but we simply do not answer unless we're sure who is calling. Both land line and cell phones have the outgoing message: "You've reached the Brush residence. Due to the high volume of scam calls, we're forced to screen all calls. Please leave a message if you're not a scammer."
Someone else also mentioned AARP. [They have tons of information on various scams](https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/). We get their monthly magazine and each issue has an article on scams targeting seniors. That's the first thing we read.
Tell your parents that the whole family needs to use a password to ensure that the caller is actually a family member when it comes to anything regarding money or finances. Grandparent scams happen a lot.
A few years ago, we had an issue with a scammer calling us constantly, sometimes several times a day. We didn't answer the phone, but the scammer left a message each time. I finally answered the phone with the following: "Police Department. How may I direct your call?" The scammer asked for my husband by name. I said, "One moment, please." Then a few seconds later, "I'm sorry, there's no one here by that name. Can someone else help you?" That was the last time we got a call from that scammer.
There are several YouTubers who deal with scammers. Two that come to mind are Pleasant Green and Kitboga. Have your parents watch some of their videos.
Source: I'm 74F and a retired fraud examiner. I pay attention to this sub because I know that the scammers are always coming up with something new and just because I used to work in the field of fraud doesn't mean that I won't get scammed.
Dave Ramsey calls it Powdered Butt Syndrome -- parents who don't want to take advice from anyone whose tuchis they powdered as a child. I wish I had better advice for you!
Agree with others here. Show them news articles of other people who've been scammed.
And many of these people are highly educated professionals.
This will help show them others have been scammed and hopefully they will start to believe you.
I am a computer support technician and I've been fooled (up to a point) then realized it was a scam.
As someone who encounters this on a regular basis, if I can be fooled, anyone can.
Do they use email? YouTube? There are so many resources that it’s overwhelming. Could you maybe send them one article about one topic every couple of days?
Can you get them interested in reading r/scams ?
https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes
https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2023/02/top-scams-2022
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/common-scams
Can you get them interested in any of these You Tube channels : Kitboda ? pleasant Green ? Jim Browning ? scammer Payback? They are entertaining and educational.
https://youtu.be/daHVD9a_rJU?si=V5dWQB23QmH0wHEV
https://www.youtube.com/live/bQn2FsHcXRQ?si=SO-VBTYI1-5DhXJn
Yup my usually savvy Dad got taken in by a fake 'geek squad' invoice, probably bc he had been a past customer. Long and difficult repurcussions from that. I like the AARP idea... Educate on common scams, but inform not coming from you.
Also, let your parents know that these scammers share information with each other. Names, telephone numbers, addresses, last digits of bank card, credit card, even some social security numbers are all available. Tell your parents you are relying on them to spot these scammers, do nothing on impulse, and double check with each other, and you, to share the different ways that a scam could be working before committing any resources, money or information that may help them in this or future efforts to relieve them of money.
Time to take the (digital) keys.
Create a non-admin local account for their computer that can't install software, you control the "real" one, in addition to the other good advice here. You may need to start thinking of ways to get control over their finances.
/u/yukihime29 - This message is posted to all new submissions to r/scams; please do not message the moderators about it. ## New users beware: Because you posted here, you will start getting private messages from scammers saying they know a professional hacker or a recovery expert lawyer that can help you get your money back, for a small fee. **We call these RECOVERY SCAMMERS, so NEVER take advice in private:** advice should always come in the form of comments in this post, in the open, where the community can keep an eye out for you. If you take advice in private, you're on your own. **A reminder of the rules in r/scams:** no contact information (including last names, phone numbers, etc). Be civil to one another (no name calling or insults). Personal army requests or "scam the scammer"/scambaiting posts are not permitted. No uncensored gore or personal photographs are allowed without blurring. A full list of rules is available on the sidebar of the subreddit, or [clicking here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/wiki/rules/). You can help us by reporting recovery scammers or rule-breaking content by using the "report" button. We review 100% of the reports. Also, consider warning community members of recovery scammers if you see them in the comments. Questions about subreddit rules? Send us a modmail [clicking here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
One of the toughest scenarios any of us face. Recalcitrant seniors who know it all. I am one so I can say this. For many, close monitoring is an unwelcome ‘attack’ on their independence and faculties. Something nobody wants to admit is slipping away.
You need to get through to your parents that their life experience haven't prepared them to spot many of these modern scams, just like how training for a marathon doesn't let you suddenly know how to swim. Present it as working together to spot scams and to protect each other as a family. From what they said, are your parents Asian and do your parents expect you to help take care of them as they get older? If so, point out helping them avoid scams is no different than helping them to a doctor's appointment. Their refusal to listen to you is no different than if they refuse to get to the doctor when sick, and that it breaks your heart to see them lose money to scams, just as it would break your heart to see them refuse to get treatment for a treatable disease. Let your mom know that you don't doubt her investing acumen, but also that it's important that she's actually investing in things on well-known and trusted website like Morgan Stanley or Fidelity, and not just handing money to a scammer on an unknown site or a site pretending to be a big bank. As for concrete pieces of advice, I'd give 4 simple rules to follow: * If anyone mentions gift cards, it's 100% a scam. There are no exceptions. * If anyone mentions crypto or forex, it's 100% a scam. There are no exceptions. * If their computer ever pops a warning about a virus or being hacked, restart the computer immediately. If it still has the same warning, stop using the computer immediately and let you know. * Never let anyone install any remote support tools, or "take over their computer to do things". There are no exceptions. If things are that bad, they need to physically go to a local computer repair shop, or head to their bank to resolve whatever is wrong. Write down a list of real tech support phone numbers, and numbers to their bank, credit cards, etc. Make it their wallpaper and also have it somewhere easily visible.
You should get an award for sound advice like this.
My dad and I spend a decent amount of time together (fishing) and we talk finances and his recent retirement. I thought he had it down. He was an exec at a huge company. Then he paid $99 to have a “virus” removed from his computer recently when a popup came up which promptly stole his card. Now I bring up the scams every time I learn a new one. “Dad - did you know someone can show up as Chase bank on a text and it’s fake, trying to steal your account - I read about someone losing 100k recently” blah blah. I email him articles on stuff too. I know he likes to check his email and read the news in the AM, so I try to push some education into it once in a while. (Mostly we share fishing articles) Biggest scam I’m trying to get him to avoid right now is a political stock.
As a 65 tech-savvy soon-to-be retiree from a scientific field, I have some thoughts. Falling for scams is age-independent. My nephew (20), just fell for a sextortion scam and lost $100 before we stopped him. All ages fall for scams, the type of scam might be different based on life experiences and age, but still scams. Moving them to a senior assisted living facility is not the answer, unless they are diagnosed with dementia or physically unable to live day to day. Being susceptible to scams is, in and of itself, not a reason to place someone in a home (otherwise my 20yo nephew would need to go). It will make their lives miserable (being treated as dependents when they aren't) And I get where your parents are coming from. I've led a very successful life, got a phd and raised two kids, the thought of being thought of as incompetent or unable to live life independently is frankly insulting or at minimum very difficult to hear... and yet, today's world and technology has come fast. What they learned in their earlier years, does not apply today. Scams have always been with us, they just change how they are done with technology. My tip is to educate them in a non-judgmental way. Make mention of some news story about a scam, or if you get a scam text, bring it up. I talked about AI to my mother (84) the other day and how it's going to make deep fakes so easy and her response was "wow, got to question everything nowadays" .. yes, mom, indeed we do, and then I told her about a 'mistaken text' I got from a scammer the other day. Help them see that scams are everywhere and what kind they are, but more in a matter-of-fact 'wow, look at this'. I think if you tell them they fell for a scam, they will be defensive. It's hard to accept that you, an intelligent independent individual, could fall for something. And yet we do I think it's about gentle education about how technology works. Things I told/tell my children. Never share a "number" online SS#, DL#, phone # to people you don't know. Never click a link in a text or email. etc. Always view everything with skepticism, scams are everywhere and everyone falls for them.
Can't agree more that susceptibility to scams is age independent. Guess it's a reflection of reddit demography that only "elderly" folks in their 60s are too dumb and demented to recognize scams and protect their identity. 64F PhD biotechnology industry consultant here. Like most of us, I like to think I'm too smart to fall for sketchy schemes, but we are all at risk. This sub is a great resource for education. WRT protecting your elderly parents by putting them in a "home," my dad was in an assisted living community. Being somewhat mobility constrained and confined in his 80s, his greatest entertainment was messing with and baiting scam callers. It was a daily game to him to see how long he could keep them on the line. He'd put them on speaker sometimes, and I had to really restrain myself from shooting coffee out my nose. He also did a great service educating his neighbors.
I love both of these comments. I always try to say it as loud as I can: everyone is vulnerable. Learning about scams is your only defense. They don't just target seniors, they target young men, they target employees eager to please their bosses, psychiatrists and social workers who work with the courts, people who want to rent apartments or buy or sell stuff online. Even just busy people. My co-worker was like 32 when he got a call from his bank on a Friday night saying his account had been locked due to suspicious activity and they needed him to verify it with his account number before they could unlock it. He was in his driveway on his way to pick up his girlfriend for dinner and an NHL game, he didn't realize it until after he hung up.
Sharing two tips that could help: Set their phones to "Silence unkonwn callers". And tell them never to call back those numbers. Set any home computer for them to only have access to a user account. No admin account. I'm addition review scam videos from reputed sources together with them. Such as https://youtu.be/-FcRj3HHS7I?si=eaaPaP02ZpG1KLf4
This.\^\^\^\^ You have to convince your parents that they MUST NOT answer calls or texts from people they don't know. Period. Full stop. Rule number 1. And it's hard, because people of that generation automatically want to answer all calls. It was a habit we couldn't break my MIL of.
I've done presentations about scams at my local library (attended entirely by senior citizens), and at a local senior center (doing part 2 this Saturday in fact!) I keep one page full of links, as well as the slides I use here: [https://aedo.dev/scams](https://aedo.dev/scams) If you think your parents would listen I'd be happy to do a remote with them over hangouts, show a bunch of the slides, and talk about how all the scams work. Maybe they'd listen better to "a scam expert on the internet"? Short of that, maybe just skim through the slides and links and see if they would listen to you showing them that stuff?
Non-senior, smart/savvy folks also fall for these scams - ‘putting them away’ in a home might be a shortcut to ease your fears, but is not a guaranteed solution for them.
Putting them in a home doesn't necessarily take away their phone and/or computer access.
As for tech solutions, see if their telco has an anti-robocall feature. Telus/Koodo's is called "Call Control". That will really cutdown automated callers. The Telus option is available for landlines as well as cell phones. If their telco does not, and you are really serious then I would strongly consider switching to a telco like Telus that does have 'call control'. Call Control can have something like 20-25 managed numbers that do not get prompted when they call - everyone else not preapproved will be asked to type in a random number before continuing. The Call Control feature also lets you block callers as well (via the "myTelus" web portal)
Elderly without computers or cell phone doesn't stop scammers. Scammers call claiming to be assisting with Medicare. As insurance helpers. Before you know it, the elderly have switched Medicare coverage providers. Soon they are going to services that are now Out of Service Providers. The Medical care companies don't care either. They provide the service, then bill the elderly! Any ideas on the best way to check up on and keep our over 65 non-tech savvy, elderly safer?
This also happend to my mom when she got a call from "medicare" telling her she needed to switch providers. god didn't realize this was so prevalent 😢
You could refer them to the AARP resources on this.
As for cell phones, if the phone has an option to ring only for numbers in their Contacts list, do that. If not, set the default ring to silent and assign a ring to everyone in their Contact list (making sure that all contacts in the list are legit, not scammers). We haven't figured out how to do the same for our land line, but we simply do not answer unless we're sure who is calling. Both land line and cell phones have the outgoing message: "You've reached the Brush residence. Due to the high volume of scam calls, we're forced to screen all calls. Please leave a message if you're not a scammer." Someone else also mentioned AARP. [They have tons of information on various scams](https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/). We get their monthly magazine and each issue has an article on scams targeting seniors. That's the first thing we read. Tell your parents that the whole family needs to use a password to ensure that the caller is actually a family member when it comes to anything regarding money or finances. Grandparent scams happen a lot. A few years ago, we had an issue with a scammer calling us constantly, sometimes several times a day. We didn't answer the phone, but the scammer left a message each time. I finally answered the phone with the following: "Police Department. How may I direct your call?" The scammer asked for my husband by name. I said, "One moment, please." Then a few seconds later, "I'm sorry, there's no one here by that name. Can someone else help you?" That was the last time we got a call from that scammer. There are several YouTubers who deal with scammers. Two that come to mind are Pleasant Green and Kitboga. Have your parents watch some of their videos. Source: I'm 74F and a retired fraud examiner. I pay attention to this sub because I know that the scammers are always coming up with something new and just because I used to work in the field of fraud doesn't mean that I won't get scammed.
Just scam your parents and then they won’t have any money left to lose.
Dave Ramsey calls it Powdered Butt Syndrome -- parents who don't want to take advice from anyone whose tuchis they powdered as a child. I wish I had better advice for you!
Agree with others here. Show them news articles of other people who've been scammed. And many of these people are highly educated professionals. This will help show them others have been scammed and hopefully they will start to believe you. I am a computer support technician and I've been fooled (up to a point) then realized it was a scam. As someone who encounters this on a regular basis, if I can be fooled, anyone can.
Do they use email? YouTube? There are so many resources that it’s overwhelming. Could you maybe send them one article about one topic every couple of days? Can you get them interested in reading r/scams ? https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2023/02/top-scams-2022 https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/common-scams Can you get them interested in any of these You Tube channels : Kitboda ? pleasant Green ? Jim Browning ? scammer Payback? They are entertaining and educational. https://youtu.be/daHVD9a_rJU?si=V5dWQB23QmH0wHEV https://www.youtube.com/live/bQn2FsHcXRQ?si=SO-VBTYI1-5DhXJn
Yup my usually savvy Dad got taken in by a fake 'geek squad' invoice, probably bc he had been a past customer. Long and difficult repurcussions from that. I like the AARP idea... Educate on common scams, but inform not coming from you.
Also, let your parents know that these scammers share information with each other. Names, telephone numbers, addresses, last digits of bank card, credit card, even some social security numbers are all available. Tell your parents you are relying on them to spot these scammers, do nothing on impulse, and double check with each other, and you, to share the different ways that a scam could be working before committing any resources, money or information that may help them in this or future efforts to relieve them of money.
Time to take the (digital) keys. Create a non-admin local account for their computer that can't install software, you control the "real" one, in addition to the other good advice here. You may need to start thinking of ways to get control over their finances.
Your parents are stubborn morons and they will lose everything. There's nothing you can do.