A couple weeks ago, I almost-not-really got scammed.
A man called me from Capital One’s fraud department to confirm that I had not, in fact, made some purchases. (No, I didn’t buy anything from Turkish Air…but that does sound kinda fun, now that you mention it.)
My guard went up pretty quickly because I’m aware (because of both my age and my profession) that scammers try to get personal information from you on the phone in this way. But it was only mildly up, so I spoke with the man for a few minutes, getting increasingly anxious. He pushed on, quashing any minor protestations of suspicion. When he finally asked me to go get my credit card so I could give him a piece of information from it, I knew it was a scam and said I’d be hanging up now. He abruptly did the honors himself.
It rattled me. Why did I spend any time on the phone with this man? I know the rules: Financial institutions (banks, credit card companies, brokerage houses, Social Security, the IRS, and on and on) will never call you and ask for information. And yet I, a cognitively healthy, informed person had not just immediately hung up. I had spent several minutes actively trying to figure out if it was a scam or not. The longer I’m on the phone, the more vulnerable I am.
If I didn’t recognize it immediately as a scam, what did this mean for my older loved ones? I mean, my parents and my aunt are all in their 80s and really healthy…but they’re still in their 80s and stuff just slows down. (Hey, Mom and Dad…wassup. Erm…you’re still great, even with your 80-year-old brains.)
This started me thinking about “What advice can I give them that is extremely easy and simple to execute that won’t require any judgement in the moment?”
I settled on advising them to say this every time a financial institution calls: “Where are you calling from? Thank you. I’m going to hang up and call back.”
Then go find the institution’s phone number (from a statement, the back of the credit card, or by typing in the URL of the website itself and finding it on the website; you can’t just search for the website because scammers can manipulate search results) and call the institution yourself. I also told my loved ones, “And you can always call me if you have any questions about what’s going on or what you should do.”
I shared these thoughts on LinkedIn, and it clearly hit a nerve. Many people reposted it. Many people shared their concerns about their own loved ones being scammed.
But what got me is that many people also shared other advice for how to deal with this situation differently or how to deal with other situations (An email! Malware on your computer! Someone at the front door!). A friend also observed that her mother would never use the script I suggested because she’d consider it rude and the mother was raised to avoid being rude at all costs.
So, while clearly people liked my specific advice, it also clearly wasn’t sufficient. But I remain committed to the idea that, whatever the solution is, it has to be simple, easy, one-size-fits-almost-all-situations, and reflexive. We can’t expect anyone to be making judgments in the moment about whether it’s a scam or not.
Why This Is So Important
You want your parents to have health insurance so that medical needs don’t bankrupt them, right? You want them to have car insurance so that if they get in an accident, they don’t need to pay out of pocket to replace an entire car or in case someone sues them for $100,000, right?
These are examples of potential economic devastation wrought by a couple different risks.
Getting scammed is a risk that can be just as disruptive and economically devastating. A big problem, it seems, is that we have no way to “offload” that risk onto anything like an insurance company. (If there is such insurance, lemme know!) So, we are left only with making sure it never happens in the first place.
From $5,000 in digital gift cards that your parents might be persuaded to buy and then give to a scammer, to unknowingly giving access to their entire bank account, and possibly their investment accounts. (Anyone else see The Beekeeper? That’s what I’m talkin ‘bout. Alas, I am not remotely as effective as Jason Statham.)
We have to take this seriously.
Stay Abreast of the Scam “Landscape”
The book Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations with Your Parents about Their Finances provides a lot of resources to help you and your parents stay up to date on current scams and how to protect yourselves:
I was going to also include the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau here, because the book mentions it, and it is reputed to be successful in helping people recover money if they’re scammed. I just don’t know what shape it will have (if any) once Elon Musk/DOGE/President Trump are done with it. Which is just so uncaring and horrible for our vulnerable loved ones.
The book has an entire chapter dedicated to “Talking to Your Parents About Scammers,” that would be a very practical how-to resource for you.
Make a Plan with Your Loved Ones
My first draft of this blog post had all sorts of specific advice about how to help your parents and other vulnerable loved ones protect themselves against scams. But there’s just so much (too much) advice out there! The blog post got longer and longer, and the longer it got, the less useful it got.
Ultimately, the best advice will really depend on the type of scam and the type of person. You know your loved ones—their finances, their personality, and their habits—better than I.
So, my advice to you is:
Take this seriously. Talk with your loved ones about it and about why it’s important to create a plan to protect themselves. Work with them to create a plan that will work for them.
- Is it a specific script they can always say on the phone?
- Is it a rule that they always call you before responding to any communication about finances?
- Is it requiring your confirmation for them to move any money over, say, $500 out of their accounts?
- Is it a rule that they never ever click any links in an email? (I could definitely benefit from following this advice, too. It’s just so ingrained!)
- Is it a rule that if something “weird” happens on their computer (which we know could be malware), they call you before doing anything with it?
- Is it turning over management of certain accounts to you, so they can’t move money out of it?
And then, much as you (should) revisit your financial plan regularly (say, once a year), you should revisit this issue with your loved ones regularly. People forget. Scams evolve. The world changes.
I’m not an expert on this matter. But I am enough aware of human behavior to know that whatever the plan is, it has to be simple, easy to follow, and not require judgment in the moment. It needs to be muscle memory, basically.
Even if you’re not a big-time caregiver (yet?) for your loved ones (you’re not accompanying them to medical appointments or coordinating in-home nursing care, for example), this is a kind of caregiving that you can—and should—start early. An ounce of prevention and all that.
Do you worry about vulnerable loved ones? Do you want to work with a financial planner who can help you consider your total financial picture (which is usually way bigger than you think)?
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