Public Safety: Technology Fraud and Senior Citizens By Jim Cheatham It happens often someone calls an elderly couple on the phone and convinces them that they are a representative from a well-known company that the couple normally does business with. This representative proceeds to tell the elderly couple about a made-up problem and asks them for personal information and credit card numbers to help fix the situation. And before the couple can figure out what has happened to them, a considerable amount of their money goes missing, credit gets ruined, and then the whole mess must be cleaned up by spending countless hours on the phone with banks, credit card companies, attorneys, etc. The internet and personal technology can be confusing enough, but when its constantly changing and updating, it can be difficult to stay ahead of the curve. Scammers take advantage of everyone, but they specifically target the elderly. Their goal is to confuse people and then appear to be the good guy by helping them out of a bogus situation they created. It has been reported that as many as one in four people over the age of sixty have fallen victim to technology fraud. The victims are often too embarrassed to tell anyone that they fell for a scam, so the crime goes unreported. The people who commit these crimes are hard to trace because they are often out of state or even out of the country. Investigating technology fraud is extremely difficult. The best defense is to prevent these scams from ever happening. How can you prevent a scam from happening to you or your aging loved ones? Be an informed consumer. The National Council on Aging has a great website, NCOA.org, which has useful tips on how to avoid being defrauded. It also educates the public on the current trends and popular fraud scenarios that swindlers are using to take advantage of people. Here are some tips on how to prevent technology fraud: Do not give out your personal information to anybody who calls or contacts you. Legitimate companies do not call and ask for personal information, and if they do, they will not have a problem with you hanging up and calling them back on a number that you have used in the past (not the one they just gave you). Be very cautious of the internet, and dont click on things unless you are sure the company is authentic. Swindlers make their websites look just like the real ones. When in doubt, close the web page, and disconnect from the internet.
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