Don't let your elderly relatives fall for scams

lypticdna, 10 months ago

Unfortunately I have witnessed friends and family fall foul in the past. From scammers with ill intentions to sales reps just angling for the bigger bonus.

While scammers are often the hardest to spot and a damn sight harder to come back from, I tell everyone to have a “question first” mindset. My missus only truly adopted that when she was stung. A perfect opportunity for a “told you so” but I took the higher ground. Luckily she got the £650 back, though there was no justice as they hid tracks well. She now questions everything.

Now, sales reps on the other hand, I have had a lot of success with in terms of correcting the sly tactics. Again, I try to instill the “too good to be true” mindset. For example, my in-laws wanted broadband but were going to charge and extra £65 a month plus a £49 install charge. Why? They just wanted the line activated for broadband… they did not want the higher broadband, a call package, did not need a line install or engineer and… wait… did not want the sports channels either. They were so confused about what they had actually agreed to. Basically the rep had taken advantage of pensioners who were confused to upsell.

Unfortunately, it is too easy for a scammer or someone with ill intentions to operate and difficult to always spot them. All we can do as the savvy generation is educate.

charlytune, 10 months ago

My mum very nearly got scammed, it was one of those phone calls pretending to be BT about the phone line getting hacked. It was only a few days after my dad died, and she was in shock and not thinking straight, and panicked because she was waiting for the coroner to email her and went into stress mode at the thought of not getting the email. They got her to install an app on her tablet, but when they asked her for bank details she refused. They then spent nearly an hour trying to convince her, getting her into a worse and worse state. I’ve never wanted to kill someone as much as I did when I found out. Particularly when I found out that she’d told them her husband had just died and he’d always dealt with computer stuff… I knew as soon as they heard that they just went “ker-ching we’ve got a juicy one”. Still makes my blood boil two years later.

smeg, 10 months ago

Yeah when you’re not in the right mindset you’re always more vulnerable, and I’ve nearly fallen for phishing emails that were claiming to be the company I was expecting something from. At least your mum has learned a lesson, and at least she managed to waste the leeches’ time for a few hours.

tkc, 10 months ago

My dad got scammed for thousands due to some guys saying they could make him more money from crypto. He gave them access to his bank account somehow, so they drained it over months.

It took my brother and some solicitors (?) months to gather the evidence to track them down and raise a case. Even then he didn’t get all of it back.

Really terrible what some people are willing to do.

Emperor, 10 months ago

I had an issue where my aged auntie was signed up to a big Virgin package (she only needed TV and phones) without her asking - first thing she knew was the home installation kit arrived, something she’d never order without checking with family tech support (me). When I rang them, they were good about fixing it and pretty much admitted that someone at the call centre had done it to get a bonus. Then it happened a second time, so I was back on the phone to them. They let me keep the home installation box the second time and drill make use of that very long Ethernet cable.

So the big companies can pull a fast one too. Be vigilant.

smeg, 10 months ago

I look forward to the day when all sales people are replaced by a web page explaining the features

Emperor, 10 months ago

Well most call centre staff will be replaced by AI in a few years.

nottheengineer, 10 months ago

It’s getting harder by the day. I recently got a phishing mail claiming to be microsoft’s quarantine, sent by microsoft.com with no spam filter noticing anything. I only noticed after the fake login site loaded in less than a second, which the real one doesn’t.

If that reached my grandparents, there’s no way in hell the could have noticed. A proper password manager (that excludes the built-in shit browsers ship with) is a must.

smeg, 10 months ago

I think you’ve just got tell them to be suspicious of everything, and to not be afraid of forwarding something dodgy-looking to you to check.

While I recommend a proper password manager to people my age I know that’s too complex for some people, and using the built-in browser one is still way better than nothing!

devdad, 10 months ago

Couldn’t agree more. Please send me the names and phone numbers of all the vulnerable people you know so I can check in with them.

/s (hopefully not needed, but you never know)

smeg, 10 months ago

I told you, I’ll send them as soon as you send my $100,000,000, your highness!

mannycalavera, 10 months ago

Sound advice. These scammers want rounding up and publicly flogged or something. Such cunts.