Scams that target the elderly video

by | Financial, Technology

Learn what to do if your elderly parent is targeted by scammers.

From phone calls asking for money and emails with suspicious links to gift card scams and texts about “gifts”… our aging parents are being victimized. What can we do about it? How can we help?

Kim & Mike Barnes talk to Attorney Sara Hunt of Sara B. Hunt who is passionate about protecting our elderly from scammers.

They discuss why senior citizens are more susceptible to fraud, how it happens, if you can scam-proof the elderly and how lawyers can help.

Click here to view the transcript

Mike: You know, it was just this morning my dad called me because he got a text about something about some package or something.

Kim: It was delivered click here on the list.

Mike: Yeah, and luckily, he called me before anything happened. Oh thank goodness.

Kim: This is just one of the many, many examples of the things that our parents are facing. And we wanted to talk to Sarah Hunt who is an estate planning attorney but also very passionate about helping to protect seniors from scams because it is such a common occurrence.

Sarah: Yes, it is. Um, there are so many reasons that seniors make really good targets. One is that they have more savings, they’re likely to have a home, they’re likely to have good credit, and they’re also more likely to pick up the phone. When they do pick up the phone, they’re more polite and they’re more trusting. So, um, this makes them vulnerable.

Kim: Really makes them more susceptible to being a target of a scam. I think too some of the technology like what mike was mentioning the text that comes in that says hey “Click here you’ve got a package” or my mom gets emails all the time that says “Hey you know this is just a confirmation of your paypal account”, which she doesn’t have, that’s been charged 700 for something “Click here if you don’t agree” yeah they’re just bombarded.

Sarah: I was talking to a 74-year-old man the other day who said that probably in the last three months he’s blocked over 400 calls from various scammers. So it’s just intense and it’s going to keep getting intense because of the aging population.

Kim: And I think some of the challenges too, and I don’t know if you see this Sarah, but just the fact that, you know, sometimes our parents are at home by themselves and, you know, somebody calls and it’s somebody to talk to. And so they’re so savvy, these scammers are so savvy at making them probably feel needed or, I don’t know, like there’s got to be some crazy psychology that they use to really, you know. And I’m trying to tell that to my mom too that, you know, these people, as I’m trying to give her ideas of, you know, she feels terrible to hang up on them but I’m like “hang up on them!”

But I think that you know they do that I try to remind her that they’re really good at being deceptive and they’re really they they know what they’re doing and that’s why that you don’t feel because I think she feels bad sometimes.

Mike: It’s like there’s a gullible list your mom’s on it and there’s a lot of other people there.

Sarah: Yeah, they’re they’re embarrassed because, um, you know if you imply that they can’t take care of themselves that’s a threat to their independence. Sure and, um, so then they go into defensive mode and don’t tell you anything.

Kim: So it sounds like it’s really important to have that kind of open communication that kind of says like, hey mom, it’s not your fault but here are some things that we can do because you know, I’ve shared with you previously that you know, we’ve gone through this road many times unfortunately with my mom and she has been,

Mike: You know, you know we’ve tried to teach your mom and we’ve taught my dad that if you get a text if you get an email, someone go ignore it, forward it to us, call us, something like that, click on the don’t click on it, don’t click on anything. but what else can we do?

Sarah: Well, the best prevention is a conversation. There’s no question about that and you’ve got to educate them on the various types of scams to look for. So there are many, many, they’re online, they’re in fake TV and radio ads, they’re on the phone. So it’s coming at them from all directions and so you have to share with them what to look for.

Kim: So let’s talk about that because I think it used to be, you know, I don’t know how many years ago it was sort of the African prince email that was saying, hey can you if you can wire me money then I’ll I have this fortune that I’ll share with you and those kinds of things and it was a pretty email and it was usually in broken English or just it just wasn’t, it raised a lot of red flags right if you read it, but I feel like they’ve gotten a lot savvier so let’s talk about what some of those kinds of scams are.

I know personally we’ve dealt with gift card scams. Where they try to tell you that they’ll give you the money to buy gift cards that for some reason they’re not able to go buy them – which should be a red flag – Right. But they can’t buy them but [they tell you] if you could just buy them the gift cards they’ll give you the money. [Then] what they do then is you go to the store, you buy the gift cards, you give them the codes, so now the gift cards have been used.

What … in our situation is they did transfer money into her account, so it made it look like it, but they had taken it from her savings account and moved it to her checking account so when she checked the balance she saw that there was money put into the checking account but it was her own money.

Yeah so that was one we’ve had people that want to fix her computers and they somehow then got into her computer they’ve caused a lot of problems created a paypal account in her name she doesn’t even know what it is you know um so those are a call i’m trying to think of well besides the many donations

Mike: Who else can we talk to? because Kim has her mom’s banker on her side so something happens but Are there other people to talk to besides an attorney like you?

Sarah: So, I would recommend that you go on the FBI website because they have accesible all of the recent alerts about various scams and how to counteract them. So instead of telling your parents about them share the alerts with them as they come through. If you see an article share it with them because you know that gives them a respect of learning about it on their own. As opposed to being told about it by their child.

Kim: And what are some of the other common scams that you’re seeing?

Sarah: Uh, so, the phone rings it’s the middle of the night so, um, mom is a little disoriented and somebody says “Grandma” and she says “Is that you Jimmy?” and they go “Yeah I’m in trouble, I had an accident and I’m in jail and I need bail money, can you help me?” and she says “Oh Jimmy what can I do?” and then the scammer hands the phone to another scammer who’s pretending to be their attorney and he says well ma’am what you need to do is go to the bank and withdraw these funds, go home put them in an envelope and then just wait there in your home and someone will come to pick up the money and sure enough, a car arrives and picks up the money and that’s the last they see of it.

Kim: And they’re bold, I mean obviously if they’re doing something like that

Sarah: And clever because, um, they don’t have to rely on grandma saying “Jimmy” (saying the name) if they have um stolen her data or looked at her social media posts they may know quite a bit about her grandson already. So they can make it that much more believable and it’s not always that elaborate sometimes it’s just um “Hello Mrs so-and-so” and then they mentioned that they’re from a charity it’s a well-known charity but they’re not really from that charity so it goes interesting the extremely creative to the pretty simple.

Kim: Wow, wow and is there a sucker list out there that you know that like hey these are people that we’ve been able you know is there a sucker list out there that people can kind of get put on I know that once you get like once you like nonprofits have you know some of those have you know like every police agency calling your mom.

Sarah: They do. They share this information with each other. Government agency impersonators are a big one to watch out for. You know they’ll get a notice in the mail, or on their computer or something like that that purports to be from a government agency, and the tell is that it’s threatening and it says,

“We’re from such and so, and if you do not forward the money that you’re supposedly owing the government, we will prosecute you or we will arrest you.”

Kim: Yeah, they’re scary.

Sarah: And of course, government agents don’t do that, but the document can look very legitimate. It may even have a watermark or something. Well, they’ll have to discuss.

Kim: Yeah, they’ll sometimes have the logo, they’ll have all of that. And what I’m trying to teach my mom is to look at the email return address and see not who it says it’s from because you can make that be whatever you want, but the actual address. And when it’s a gibberish gmail.com, you know it’s not AT&T, right? I mean, you know it’s not.

Sarah: Yeah. And look for the lock symbol, look for the lock symbol, look for the http. Yeah, those things will tell you too, so or just contact the agency directly.

Mike: When somebody, Kim’s mom, my dad, whoever it may be, if we catch it too late and they do get scammed, what do we do?

Sarah: Well, the first thing to do is call your attorney, have them freeze your parents’ credit report because once your credit report is frozen, no one can get to it. And if mom wants to apply for a loan or a credit card, she has to unfreeze her credit report using a special pin that she’s been assigned, and then it goes, it becomes frozen again, and it stays frozen until you cancel it in writing. Okay, so that’s a really good tool.

Kim: Are there any ways to really sort of scam-proof our aging parents, our elderly? Is there any way to really scam-proof them, or is it more just educating and kind of keeping an eye on things?

Sarah: It’s educating and keeping an eye on things and communicating. Like you don’t want to just sit down and try to give your parents a crash course in scams. You kind of want to do this incrementally so that you know, like have a conversation with them about the good old days, you know, how it used to be that you could do a deal on a handshake or you know, leave your doors unlocked. I know my parents never locked their doors and you know. So if you start talking with them about that, then that opens the conversation to, “There are so many scams these days. Have you heard about it?” And just kind of keep the information flowing so that they become more and more savvy. There’s no scam-proofing any of us; they’re very smart, we’re all susceptible.

Kim: I got two of those delivery texts today, you know, that said,

“Hey, your delivery’s been made. Click here for a prize,” or
“Thanks for paying your bill. Here’s a prize.”

So could we give just a couple of quick sort of tips of things that like, I know a couple things that I’ve come up with is, you know, one telling my mom not to answer the phone unless it’s a contact in her phone, knowing how to potentially block a number once you feel like, “Okay, that’s a call that came in, and that was not somebody I want to talk to again, so I can block that number.”

What looking at the actual email address, what are some other quick little, okay, credit limiter. That’s one of the things that we did too is reduce mom’s credit limit on her credit card, just in case.

Sarah: Yeah, yea, So the pandemic is making it worse because since seniors are more vulnerable to the coronavirus, they’re staying home more and they’re isolated, and there’s a holiday season, so they’re Christmas shopping and just tell them if you’re looking for a gift and you see it but the price seems too good to be true, it probably is, and don’t try to investigate it, don’t click on it because the moment you click on it, now they can see your passwords, your bank accounts, whatever you’ve got. [Wow] Yeah, that’s, we’re gonna see a lot of that during the holidays, I believe.

There’s also a lot of fake coronavirus cures online these days, so don’t click on those. If your computer freezes and you get a pop-up that says,

“You have a computer problem and here’s where you click for tech support”

and then they go in and they access your computer. So many. Another one is,

“You have won the lottery or a foreign lottery”

Or a sweepstake, and you know you’ve won this pile of money, but in order to access your winnings, we’re going to need your date of birth, your social security number, and a small fee.

Dating sites, seniors are isolated and they’re lonely, and so these types of scammers, they’re playing a long game, they’re very patient so they can go for months and months building up this online relationship and trust until one day nine months a year later they say you know “I’m just dying to meet you in person if only I had the airfare”.

Kim: So frustrating. Well, and I know you know as an attorney, as an estate attorney, you’re mostly spending time helping people with their wills, trust, and all of those things. But you have really become passionate about this. Are there other things that can help us?

Sarah: Yes, in dealing with this. Yes, yes, yes! So there’s the credit freeze. I believe that the best thing that an attorney can do is come up with a safety plan, help your parents design a safety plan so that if this does happen, they know exactly what to do and they do it as quickly as possible. Why the rush? Because when the attorney contacts the credit card companies and the banks, they can get some of those charges reversed and some of that money recouped, but only if it happens quickly. After 60 days, it’s very hard to get the money back.

Kim: Yeah, we had that happen with mom when these people created a PayPal account in her name and charged stuff. Thankfully, her bank was amazing. I’m on a first-name basis with her bank’s branch manager. He was able to take care of that, and we were able to set up some things in her bank account so that they couldn’t have access anymore. It was frustrating, but we were able to get some help.

I know that some of the frustrations for people with ongoing issues or if they become aware of a scam, even when you have all the information when there hasn’t been a crime yet committed, it’s hard for the police to do anything. I’ve heard from some friends that that’s been really challenging, and that’s probably a whole another topic, right?

Sarah:
well you know and the police have you know limited ability to go after people and they tend to concentrate on the scams that they’re hearing about the most.

One particular scam that that comes up once in a while they they can’t really chase down them all and they’re then they’re proliferating.

If your parents have had their identity stolen, have the attorney file an application in the state district court to have them actually declared a victim of identity theft. That’s going to involve some affidavits and presenting some evidence, but once you get that order, they can then present that to government agencies or private businesses so that the record can be corrected and they can start clearing their name.

Kim: There’s just so much to know and it goes on and on. This was just a start of the conversation.

Mike: So many good tips, Sarah. Thank you so much.

Sarah: You’re welcome.

Mike: I think you know where to start now with different things, but there’s so many possibilities out there. That’s the scary part.

Kim: It sounds like a lot of conversations with your parents, helping to educate them, making them aware, and also having them feel comfortable having conversations with you even if they feel like they have become a victim so that you can help and
step in.

Mike: It goes back to what we keep talking about: planning and communication.

If you’ve got any subject you’d like us to tackle, let us know here: parenting aging parents.

*This transcript is auto-generated. Please excuse any typos or mistakes.

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