Everyone should talk to their relatives, especially elderly relatives about scams. The most important points are:
That they should never trust that the person calling is who they say they are, they can always hang up, look up the number and call the company/police/whoever directly. Also talk about how scammers create a false sense of urgency. Lastly, talk about the ways scammers collect their money, by having you send venmo/Apple pay/Zelle, gift cards or crypto atms, nobody legitimate requires that kind of payment.
It’s a hard thing to talk about without making them feel like you’re calling them dumb or gullible. The way I broached it with my mom was to tell her about someone smart I knew that got tricked by one of those tech support scams.
Nothing guarantees you won’t get tricked into a scam, but you can make it harder
Everyone should talk to their relatives, especially elderly relatives about scams. The most important points are:
That they should never trust that the person calling is who they say they are, they can always hang up, look up the number and call the company/police/whoever directly. Also talk about how scammers create a false sense of urgency. Lastly, talk about the ways scammers collect their money, by having you send venmo/Apple pay/Zelle, gift cards or crypto atms, nobody legitimate requires that kind of payment.
It’s a hard thing to talk about without making them feel like you’re calling them dumb or gullible. The way I broached it with my mom was to tell her about someone smart I knew that got tricked by one of those tech support scams.
Nothing guarantees you won’t get tricked into a scam, but you can make it harder
My parents are generally pretty savvy but I try to talk to them about it by claiming that someone tried to scam me and how I recognized it as such