How to Protect Elderly Parents from Scams and Fraud

One of the biggest threats your parents face as they age is elder financial exploitation. They could lose their entire life savings to a scammer—or even to someone close to them who takes advantage of their trust. According to AARP, adults 60 and older lose an estimated $28.3 billion annually to elder financial exploitation.

When my mom was still living alone in the early stage of Alzheimer’s disease, she almost lost hundreds of dollars to a phone scammer who had persuaded her she had won a sweepstakes and needed to wire money to collect her prize. If I hadn’t intervened, that money would have been gone.

Certainly, cognitive decline put my mom at a greater risk of exploitation. But all older adults face an increased threat because con artists assume they have a large stash of retirement savings and specifically target them for that reason. That’s why it’s so important to talk to your parents about scams and fraud and help them take steps to lower their risk of becoming victims. 

Tell aging parents about the latest scams

Awareness can go a long way toward protecting your parents from scams. Research by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority found that those who are aware of a particular scam are 80% less likely to interact with it. If they do engage, they are 40% less likely to fall victim.

You can stay on top of the latest scams at AARP.org, BBB.org and Getcarefull.com (full disclosure: I’m the director of education at Carefull). Email, print out or discuss articles on these sites detailing how current schemes work and what your parents need to look out for. 

Alert aging parents to scam red flags

Even if your parents aren’t familiar with all of the latest schemes, they still can avoid becoming a victim if they know the red flags of scams. Warn your parents about these telltale signs:

• Scammers contact you out of the blue and typically claim to be with a well-known business, organization or government agency such as the IRS, Medicare or Social Security Administration. Warn parents that they might seem legitimate because they have some of their personal information but that this information is leaked through data breaches and sold to scammers on the dark web.

• Scammers claim you must act now to solve a problem (unpaid taxes, fraud on your account, etc.) or to claim a prize. Warn parents that if someone has contacted them and is pressuring them to take immediate action, they should reach out to you for assistance.

• Scammers ask for unusual forms of payment such as wire transfers, gift cards and cryptocurrency. Warn parents that legitimate companies and government agencies won’t ask for these forms of payment. 

• Scammers ask for personal information such as your Social Security number, account number or account login credentials. Warn parents that their financial institutions, utility companies or government agencies won’t contact them out of the blue and ask for this information (they will only ask for identity verification if your parents have contacted them).

• Scammers make threats and demand secrecy. Tell parents to disengage with anyone who is threatening legal action or claiming they can’t discuss what is going on, even with an attorney. Scammers use this tactic to scare people into cooperating.

 

Help parents create a refusal script for scam calls

The best way for your parents to avoid scam calls is to let all calls go to voicemail so that they can screen them. However, they might answer calls out of habit and stay on the line rather than hang up to avoid appearing rude. 

So you need to help them come up with a sentence that helps them get off the phone without feeling bad. If they get a suspicious call, tell them to say something like, “I’m having tea with Officer Brady and can’t talk now.”

Tell parents not to respond to unsolicited emails or text messages

Warn aging parents never to click on links in unsolicited emails or text messages or respond in any way. Even if the messages appear to come from a trusted source, they could be from scammers pretending to be with a company they know. Those links could download spyware onto their devices or take them to fake websites that aim to steal their personal or account information.

They should look up the number of the company that is supposedly trying to contact them and call it directly to see if it was trying to reach them.

Help parents monitor their financial accounts

Recommend to your parents that they set up online access for all of their financial accounts if they haven’t already. They might balk because they think it’s risky, but it’s riskier if they don’t have online access and have to wait for monthly statements to see activity on their accounts.

Make sure they’re using unique, strong passwords with a combination of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols for each account. They can then sign up to receive transaction alerts to be notified of activity on their accounts. Ask if they would consider having account alerts sent to you, too, so that you can be a second set of eyes and help catch fraud.

Better yet, they could use a service such as Carefull to get 24/7 account, credit and identity monitoring for a much broader range of transactions than what financial institutions typically offer. And they can name you a trusted contact to give you view-only access to accounts that are being monitored and transaction alerts.

Help parents check their credit reports

Your parents could be victims of fraud and not know it. One way to find out is to have them check their credit reports, which will show all lines of credit opened in their names. If they are victims of identity theft, there might be accounts in their names they didn’t open.

They can get free copies of their credit reports from each of the three credit bureaus—Equifax, Experian and TransUnion—at Annualcreditreport.com. If they find suspicious accounts, they can contact the credit bureaus using the phone numbers listed on their credit reports and ask for the fraud departments, which can walk them through the steps they need to take. 

Help parents freeze their credit reports

Placing a security freeze on your parents’ credit reports can prevent identity thieves from opening accounts in their names. Lenders have to pull credit reports before extending credit. So if someone is using your parents’ personal information to get credit in their names and your parents’ credit reports are frozen, lenders can’t issue new lines of credit. 

It’s free to place a credit freeze, and your parents can lift the freeze if they need to apply for credit. They must place a freeze on their reports at all three credit bureaus to be effective.

• Equifax security freeze
• Experian security freeze
• TransUnion credit freeze

 

Consider a location sharing app

It might sound extreme, but keeping tabs on your parents’ whereabouts with a location sharing app could help you protect them from sending money to scammers. A college friend of mine discovered her dad was a victim of a scam through tracking with Life360 that showed he had made frequent visits to FedEx. She called to find out what was going on and learned he was sending checks to scammers he thought were IRS agents.

You could tell your parents that signing up for a family locator app plan would allow for coordination, emergency assistance and protection for the whole family.

Bottom line

Above all, keep the lines of communication open with your parents. Talking to them regularly about scams and fraud and letting them know to reach out to you whenever they get a suspicious call, email or text can go a long way toward protecting them. 

If they do become a victim of a scam, don’t blame them. Then they’ll only feel ashamed and won’t reach out to you if it happens again. Instead, offer to help them report the crime and repair the damage.