Targeting of Seniors online: How I helped to beat a scammer....

How to protect the seniors in your lives from cyber scammers

When I started my post-FBI life, I wanted to blend my passion for education and cybersecurity to help protect the more vulnerable among us from becoming victims of cybercrime. This week highlighted why I do this as the following story, hopefully, will illustrate.

My wife has a friend whose mother is widowed and met a man on Facebook. They had been communicating for a couple of months, both via FB messenger and the occasional phone call. The friend was worried because this man told her mother he loved her. This peaked my ears, as this was clearly an indicator of a potential scammer in their midst. Fortunately, the mother came over to my house the other night as her daughter convinced her to talk to me. I listened to her story of how they met, how they had been communicating and I could tell in her tone that she wanted to believe he was a good guy. I explained my experience with these types of things and asked if I could look at his Facebook profile. I immediately highlighted several issues:

1) The account was created in June.
2) He had zero friends, but 150 people he followed (to her this looked like he had 150 connections - he did not).
3) He had limited pictures and no personal information.

This kind lady was looking for companionship online, as so many do, and was of a generation where trust is important and people want to focus on the general good of people. I absolutely understood all these things but told her of multiple instances of experiences in my FBI career where many people like her had met similar people, only to be scammed of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars.

I told her, it was likely he would ultimately ask her for money. She said he hadn't yet and it really was an effort to try and convince her of the risk. This is something I see all the time, where there is an implicit trust built up quickly online because people, in general, desperately want to trust others. I’d wager someone somewhere has done a study on this, I should look that up!

Well, yesterday (3 days after our discussion) he asked her for over $200,000 to help him finish a “project” he was on, THEN he could come to meet her in person. Fortunately, she cut off communication at that point (at least I am pretty sure she did). She sent my wife some images of messages he sent asking for the $ also. It is an extensive scam (if she gives permission, I'll post them). I take no joy in being right, to be honest. But thankfully she was saved from an endless rabbit hole where he would just keep asking for more and more money. I hope she shares the messages as I want to contact him myself to let him know he lost! (That may be wrong, and one of you may talk me out of it…)

I mention this story to highlight the point that there are thousands if not millions of these scammers preying on seniors worldwide. This is not just a US problem, it is a global problem and people are scammed daily.

I hope this story can be shared far and wide to help others understand the depth and breadth of this problem. I think it is important for all of us, with senior family members and friends, to be aware of these online threats and keep our loved ones educated and protected. Here are a couple of simple tips, to help you start the conversations with the seniors in your lives, to keep them safe.

1. Recognizing Common Scams:

   • Phishing Emails: Explain that scammers often send emails pretending to be from reputable companies to get individuals to reveal personal information.

   • Lottery or Prize Scams: Scammers inform the victim they've won a prize but need to pay a fee to claim it.

   • Tech Support Scams: Scammers pretend to be tech support and claim there's an issue with the victim's computer, asking for access or payment to "fix" it.

2. Safe Online Behavior:

   • Password Strength: Emphasize the importance of strong, unique passwords for each online account and the benefits of using a password manager.

   • Clicking on Links: Advise them never to click on suspicious links, even if they appear to come from a known contact.

   • Downloading Attachments: Caution them about downloading attachments from unknown sources.

3. Verifying Information:

   • Double-checking: Encourage them to verify unexpected requests for money or personal information by contacting the person or company directly using a known phone number or email.

   • Research: Show them how to use search engines to research unknown companies or offers.

4. Protecting Personal Information:

   • Sharing Limitations: Advise them not to share personal information like Social Security numbers, bank details, or Medicare numbers unless they're sure of the recipient's identity.

   • Secure Websites: Teach them to look for "https://" in the website URL and a padlock symbol in the browser bar, indicating the site is secure.

5. Reporting and Recovery:

   • Reporting Scams: Let them know about local or national agencies where they can report scams, such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the U.S.

   • Recovery Steps: Discuss steps to take if they believe they've been scammed, such as contacting their bank, changing passwords, and monitoring their accounts for unusual activity.

It takes a village, I hope this substack can be part of this village!

Stay Safe online,

Darren