Abolish FReepathons.
Go monthly!!
Posted on 08/12/2013 10:06:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
Dear Carrie, My 75-year-old mother is pretty independent. She uses email and is comfortable online getting news and even making some purchases. Lately, she's been telling me about offers for things like insurance and investments, and I worry she'll be the victim of a scam. How can I help without seeming overly protective? --A Reader
Dear Reader, There's no doubt that Internet usage by seniors is growing dramatically. A recent Pew Internet Survey showed 30 percent of people 75 and older use the Internet. Of that group, between 50 and 89 percent go online for email, searches, purchases, news and travel reservations. Thirty-five percent bank online. This age group also had the fastest growth in using social network sites.
While this is good news in terms of seniors embracing new technologies and keeping connected, it does open the door to more and more folks being vulnerable to online scams. And there are plenty out there. From phishing in order to steal personal information to offers of too-good-to-be-true investment opportunities, Internet users of all ages need to be aware of how to protect themselves.
Since you say your mother is pretty independent, she might be a bit sensitive if you question her about her Internet use. But seniors are a definite target for scammers, so your concern is justified. It may just require a bit more tact in addressing it.
Start by expressing your own security concerns
Have you received a suspicious email recently that you can show your mother? Or perhaps, as seems to be happening more often these days, have you received bogus messages from someone who has had their email hacked? While the plea for money from a friend who's supposedly been robbed while traveling may now feel familiar, having your email hacked can lead to serious financial loss. Share these stories and concerns with your mother. Make her aware that anyone using the Internet is a potential victim.
Talk about common scams
Online scams take all forms, from lotteries and sweepstakes to weight loss and miracle cures. Those that seem particularly targeted to seniors are investment opportunities that prey on an older person's fear of running out of money, offers of insurance policies that will pay your bills should something happen to you, or emails pretending to be from a well-known source, such as a bank or other familiar financial company, claiming the need to verify account information.
These fraudulent offers not only present a potential financial loss for the person who responds, but they can lead to identity theft -- with even greater problems and losses. According to the Federal Trade Commission, 11.7 million people, representing five percent of all people in the U.S. 16 and older, were victims of identity theft between 2006 and 2008 alone. Maybe you and your mother can explore the FTC website together. It has a lot of information about common scams and how to spot them.
Share your techniques for not falling victim
Scammers are smart and know how to push emotional buttons to get a response. While we all hope that we won't be taken in, it happens to many of us. And an older person may be particularly sensitive about looking incompetent should she fall victim to a scam. To help your mother protect herself, review with her the things you do to stay clear of scams. Here's my list:
--Never reply to an unknown email.
--Never click on a link or download information unless you know the sender. Even then you need to be cautious because some links and downloads may contain malware or spyware that can monitor or control your computer use and gain access to your personal and financial information.
--Don't call a phone number provided in an unknown email, even if it has a local area code.
--Don't email personal or financial information.
--If you receive a suspicious email from a bank or other company, contact that company by phone to alert them.
--Make sure you have up-to-date security software on your computer.
If you have been the victim of fraud, identity theft or deceptive business practices, you can file a complaint with the FTC at ftc.gov or by calling 877-FTC-HELP (877-382-4357).
Open the door to a broader financial discussion
By taking this approach, rather than you seeming over protective, you and your mother will be discussing potential problems on the same level. This might also lead to a broader discussion of her financial know-how, whether it is investments, insurance or estate planning. At any age, it's important to be frank and honest about all these things. It will make you both feel more secure about the present, along with the future.
Go monthly!!
simple- never give money to anyone over the internet
My dad, who is 89, isn’t a big internet user but he does check email and some websites and he figured this out faster than I did. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” is a lesson he learned many years ago, and his only question to me was if there was a way he could mass delete all the crap in his Inbox without having to do it one at a time.
I’m 80 and am perfectly capable of being aware of scams.
I don’t need help——we are not all fools.
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It isn’t easy to protect elderly parents from con artists. My dad was always the go-to guy in the family. After he got older and was ill, we found out he had been giving huge amounts of money to some guy who lived in his apt. complex. We never could get a straight answer out of my dad as to why he did it.
I read recently that aging brains undergo changes (not true dementia) that make elderly more trusting and gullible. They are more apt to believe some phony story than they would have in their younger years.
All I can say is, keep watching your elderly relatives’ finances and how they are living as closely as you can. You might try enlisting the help of their attorney, if they have one, and the institution that has their accounts. Of course, you are limited as to how much you can find out, but if you let the bank or investment company know that you have concerns, they can at least be on the lookout for problems.
With one exception.
yes, take away her internet. done. and if she starts spending a ton on qvc or the jewelry channel, cable go bye-bye too. her own safety is paramount and these must go away if she can’t tell a scam on her own anymore.
Right you are. and computers are not "new technology" to many seniors. I was using them in 1977. Granted they've improved a bit since then.
nobody said you are all fools. you think the author is talking specifically about you? they aren’t. they are talking about their own relative, not you.
older folks are known as a group to be easy prey for scams and of course that doesn’t mean every single one. the ones that are prone to falling for stuff are the ones that need extra help.
you gotta stop reading stuff like it’s a personal attack. when someone specifically mentions you by name, or somehow gives so many clear hints they could only mean you, it’s a personal attack. when they don’t mention you at all, but someone else entirely, and talk about a demographic’group in general terms and trends of that group as a whole, that isn’t a personal attack.
I’ve never understood why so many seniors get taken in by Internet scams. Most seniors are intelligent people who are realistic enough to know that there is no free lunch. Unless someone is mentally deficient, like having Alzheimer’s, I would think they could see just as easily as anyone else that it isn’t a wise idea to wire someone a lot of cash because you got an email from someone you don’t know. I suspect that the press sensationalizes this. The press finds the couple of people who did get taken in and then generalizes to the entire senior population.
I’m 80 and am perfectly capable of being aware of scams.
I don’t need help——we are not all fools.
My dad, who is 89, isn’t a big internet user but he does check email and some websites and he figured this out faster than I did. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” is a lesson he learned many years ago, and his only question to me was if there was a way he could mass delete all the crap in his Inbox without having to do it one at a time.
I didn’t think he was reading it as a personal attack. I think he was suggesting that stupid old people used to be stupid young people - but now they are a target because of their place in life - be it because they receive more than they earn or they live off a savings account that someone can convince them to drain while a younger person simply does not have the option.
And then of course there is stuff like the ailments that can affect the aging brain. But if your parents have that issue, there should be a power of attorney in force somewhere.
No. People that are open to being scammed are open to being scammed. You can explain things to them until your chin falls off, and the next scam that pops up they’ll eagerly comply. As seniors get older, frailer and more reliant on others they also tend to be more trusting, which makes them more willing victims.
Thank you for correcting me!!
I monitor my 92 years old deaf grandma’s incoming e-mails everyday, unsubscribed every liberal orgs asking for donations, etc... She hates wearing hearing aids so her only outlet is e-mail.
Case in point: I have a longtime friend who has only been a recovering liberal since Obama, so she still has a ways to go. Recently I told her about one of the big scandals of this administration, and she not only didn't believe me, she denounced me and called me several lefty buzzword names. So I took her device, looked it up and showed it to her, and told her she needed to do more research before assuming a friend is a right-wing loon. She was shocked, and promptly sat down and wrote, "I just learned about the (xyz scandal). If true, this is awful. What do any of you know?" and sent it to all her Facebook friends.
Sigh.
It's going to be a long, uphill struggle.
Hint: don't even try to clean the keyboard with Scrubbing Bubbles.
Send this to him, and tell him to send it to all his "friends" who open an email and forward it to everyone in their address book, then open the next email and forward it to everyone in their address book, then open the next email and forward it to everyone in their address book, then...
E-mail Etiquette Top 12
We're all avalanched with online messages these days. Advertisers, friends, relatives -- it adds up to a constant bombardment. But as new online channels -- user groups, blogs, Facebook -- open up, email should now be reclaiming its rightful sphere as a place for personal letters between friends. And ok, a few pet pictures.How many of us have been "dropped" by an email buddy -- suddenly, their e-address doesn't work any more, and they never send you a new one. Did you send them too many "Online Buddies" sentiments, special interests of yours of no interest to them, odd car wreck photos, political conspiracy theories, internet worms or marketing spam disguised as cute brain teasers?
Here is a review of polite ways to avoid offending -- or endangering -- your email buddies:
1. If a web site you visit asks you if you want to "share" this article with your email friends, and gives you a box to fill in their addresses, NEVER do that! It just gives advertisers and spammers a list of new prospects. If you want to share an online article, learn how to copy the headline and e-address of the article and paste them into a new email. (Hint: it's usually two separate steps; please take the time to protect your friends.)
2. If you believe you are a source of excellent opinion on a given topic, such as religion, politics or even humor, and you want to send multiple emails PER DAY on your topic, DON'T! unless you have the specific permission of your recipient -- and unless you don't care if those people remain your friends. If you are serious about your obsessive interest, start a blog or Facebook page about it, and compete for readers like any other publisher. Don't inflict your views on your friends several times a day, even if you think share your point of view. If you really need to be that chatty, write a letter by hand or pick up the phone and have an actual conversation with your friend.
3. If you have a list for a work group or community organization, DO NOT USE THAT LIST FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE without permission of the individuals. Just because they "let you in" for a legitimate communications need does not give you permission to send squirrel photoshops or jokes about old age.
4. If you only do email once or twice a week and would like to forward six or eight emails at one time, DON'T. Limit yourself to two or three really good ones. Really. What is the purpose of communicating with your friends? Clogging their inbox with miscellaneous video links? Or staying in touch? Err on the side of "less is more."
5. DO NOT hit "forward" every single email you receive to every single friend in your address book. Take the time to send special interest mail to people who actually share that interest. If you just send everything indiscriminately, you are really saying, "I don't know you very well." Or, "I don't care if I'm wasting your time; I can't be bothered to waste mine sorting your interests out of the herd." It's like buying your size-10 wife a size-16 dress because "Hell, it's a dress -- how am I supposed to know what size you are? You can just go and exchange it." Crass. And lazy.
6. Be careful of forwarding links to "fun" sites online that extract identity information disguised as amusement, such as "Free horoscope -- what's your birthday?" They are actually data-mining operators amassing personal details associated with your email address for spammers and identity thieves.
7. Learn how to erase all the addresses an email came from and not send them forward. Your email program and your computer have "help" buttons telling how to do these.
8. Learn how to use the "BCC" (blind carbon copy) function of your email program. It keeps all your recipients from receiving the addresses of all the other friends you sent that email to -- and especially your relatives. Why? First, it's none of their business; and again, identity thieves want all your relatives' info along with yours to crack your identity.
9. If you really, really think your online jokes, cartoons or opinions are THAT good, save a bunch of them in a folder and group the best of them in one email per month, to send to only your contacts actually interested in that topic.
10. If a friend asks you ONCE to stop emailing so frequently, STOP EMAILING SO FREQUENTLY. Don't wait to be told a second time. If you keep it up and get dumped from their email access, you asked for it.
11. Remember, anything you say or send online can be linked back to you eventually. ANYTHING. G-Mail, Google, U-Tube, Amazon and many of our most frequently visited sites are constantly building a dossier on every click you make, sometimes every word in your emails, tracking your interests for their own purposes, such as selling your information to marketing companies -- or "sharing" it with Homeland Security because you sent a funny email called "Ph0to B0mbin'." All this is done blindly, arbitrarily and automatically by powerful computer farms with giant memory banks, and all it takes is one disgruntled employee of one of these data mining operations, including the U.S. government, for a load of information about you to go viral, or land in your FBI dossier.
12. As your mom used to say, don't print anything you don't want to see in Macy's window the next day. Don't even click on it if you would be ashamed for your children, spouse or mother to know you're involved in it.
Online only feeeels private. IT ISN'T. If you value your privacy and that of your friends, less is more.
And Facebook? Don't get me started....
Yes.
Go to their home, yank the ethernet cable out of the wall and throw the computer into the driveway, making certain to back over it on the way out!
I guess we will disagree. no biggie.
I guess we will disagree. no biggie.
My mother is 12 years older than you and doesn't need help either. Not all elderly are senile or idiots.
The only problem mom has is her arthritic fingers make it difficult to type.
However, you can put them in your dishwasher, I've done it. Take them out before the drying cycle and let them drip dry on a drain board or better yet, in the sun.
My 90 Year Old Father begs to be scammed. Same as when he was 80, 70, 60, 50, 40 and 30. He was too busy fighting WWII to get scammed when he was 20.
Luckily, he only gets them through the Mail and he doesn’t have a Pot to piss in or a Window to throw it through.
Completely sane, but he has always been one of those people looking for the Golden Ring. As my 89 Year Old Aunt tells him (and everyone else for that matter), “Live in hope, die is despair”.
OK, I need to ask. What made you want do that the very first time, a Concussion? LOL
I read it on the internet.......it had to be true didn't it?
Actually, my daughter told me about it.
I don't know where she got it.......probably on the internet.
Someone should go to your home, yank the Ethernet cable out of the wall and throw your computer into the driveway, plus your Laptop and drive and backup over both several times for being so rude.
Remember you will be getting old too, if you are lucky.
“My mother is 12 years older than you-———”
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Good for her.
One of my pet peeves is when an 18 year old clerk/waitress calls me “dear”.
You’re lucky to still have your Mom.
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“————a demographic’group in general terms and trends of that group as a whole, that isn’t a personal attack.”
=
I’ll try to keep that in mind.
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