Protect Senior Citizens From Digital Scams

I attend First Congregational Church of Long Beach where, in the last 120 days, senior citizen congregants have been hoodwinked by digital con artists. In each case a different set of seniors was bamboozled and in each case the tactics were slightly different. In response to these crimes being perpetrated on my church family, I produced the Youtube video Protecting Seniors From Deed Theft And Other Digital Scams .

Michael Shuster, who describes himself as an award winning realtor in Toronto, explains how to protect yourself from deed fraud. Now Shuster is in Canada. But his explanation of title insurance was extremely clear and straight forward, which I liked, so I’m linking him. You will of course have to talk to your local real estate specialist about the laws in your state and how the protection methods he is describing apply to property owned by you or your senior.
Title FRAUD: Can Someone Steal Your Property & How To Protect Yourself

BANK ACCOUNT THEFT

This story in the March 9, 2021 issue of the Los Angeles Times by David Lazarus is about a La Palma, California couple of seniors who had their bank account stolen. They would not have gotten it back if a reporter from the Los Angeles Times had not intervened.
Column: If this is the best banks can do to prevent fraud, we’re in a lot of trouble

1. Stop banking at banks and bank at a credit union
2. Download the banking application to your senior’s mobile phone or tablet and add two step verification to it.
1. Here is a video giving an example of how two step verification works for banking. How it is described here is basically how it works for all banking institutions.
2. Make the telephone landline the number that is called for the two step verification code, not the mobile phone.
3. Better yet, use a physical two step verification key that stays at the senior’s house next to the computer.
3. Set up banking alerts
1. Set up an alert for withdrawals over a certain amount
2. Set up alerts for every check that clears
3. Set up daily balance alerts
4. If your senior does not have a smart phone or tablet he/she checks regularly, you can have the alerts sent to their email. If the senior does not check his/her email regularly, have the alerts sent you your email.

TEXT SCAMS

Remember I said in the video that a co-congregant of mine was recently taken by an Amazon phone scam. At that time I warned this co-congregants sibling to be on the lookout for someone contacting her via email or text pretending to be the person who got scammed or mentioning the person who got scammed. Because what scammers will do once they’ve compromised your online accounts is download your contacts so that they can start targeting those people pretending to be you asking for money or mentioning you to your contacts to during their scams to gain a level of trust or credibility.

Not a week after my co-congregant got scammed members of church started receiving text messages that claimed to be from a pastor at First Congregational Church of Long Beach who was supposedly taking up a collection for something or the other and asking for money. The co-congregant who got scammed had many church people in his/her contacts.

Warn your seniors to:

Ignore all monetary solicitations via text. Whatever organization it is, a political party, a religious organization, a community group, if they are having a campaign they are going to solicit you multiple ways. Sure, they MAY text you (though my church in particular does not text people as the initial contact during our fundraising campaigns.), but they are also going to mail you a solicitation. The letter will come with a return envelope that you can confirm is going to the address associated with that organization. So you can simply ignore text solicitations for money no matter from whom they say they are coming. This is ESPECIALLY true if it claims to be a family member in distress somewhere. You’re family members KNOW you are a senior who has been told to ignore text solicitations for money. If they are in distress they are going to know they need to find a way to TELEPHONE you or if they can only text they need to text a different family member and have that member get a hold of you.

Even if you don’t intend to answer the text, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, click any links that are in the text message. EVEN if the links LOOK like they go to the organization’s real website. If you want to check online to see if the organization is truly having a fundraiser, go to your web browser and TYPE IN THE ORGANIZATION’s DOMAIN OR ORGANIZATION NAME YOURSELF! Those links are going to website that are FAKES, made to look like the real website. But the credit card processing on those websites IS real. The money just isn’t going to the organization you think it is. Worse yet, the links lead to website that plant spyware on your phone or computer so that the scammers can steal your information without you even having to talk to them and get tricked into giving it up.

Check out the claims of anyone claiming to be from a certain organization (whether they email or telephone you). Look at letters that have come to you from that organization in the past. Is the phone number on the letter the same area code and prefix as the person calling you? Is the name the person gave you listed as a staff member on the organizational letterhead or on the organization’s website? If you have ANY uncertainty, telephone the organization and ASK. In fact a member of my congregation telephoned the church secretary and asked if there was a pastor So-and-So now on the staff. Of course the answer was no because the scammer had made up a name.

STEPS TO TAKE THE PROTECT YOUR SENIOR BEFORE THEY’VE BEEN SCAMMED BUT ESPECIALLY AFTER

1. FREEZE YOUR CREDIT AND GET CREDIT MONITORING
1. Check to see if your senior is already paying for a SERVICE that helps him/her freeze and monitor their credit.
1. AOL Advantage Essentials is no longer offered because the deal is so good. It was $9.99 per month and it covered virus/spyware protection (from MacAfee), Identity Theft protection (Credit freezes and credit monitoring) plus it had other benefits (Computer insurance in case of hacks for example). The senior I know who got scammed, had actually been paying for AOL Advantage Essentials since 2013 and had NEVER ACTIVATED IT.
1. Your senior may tell you that he or she already has “computer protection” and/or “identity protection” that they are paying for from AOL or from some other service. And they may show you their credit card bill which shows they are indeed paying for it. Have them log into the service, for example, have them log into AOL “My Benefits” to see if they ever ACTIVATED the service. Did they download the anti-virus/anti-malware software and install it? Did they actually sign up for Lifelock and freeze their credit. Did they sign up their computer by serial number for the computer protection insurance?

1. Look on your senior’s cable/Internet bill to see if they are paying for anti-virus/anti-malware protection.
1. If they are paying for it, make sure they have downloaded it and installed it to all available devices.
1. If it is downloaded and installed, make sure it is the latest version if the updates are not automatic.
2. Don’t pay for Lifelock. Not because it’s not good. It IS good. But because Lifelock is probably already bundled in with a service your senior is already using.
1. AARP has an identity protection subscription that comes with Lifelock
2. Costco has an identity protection subscription that comes with Lifelock
3. AAA, The Automobile Club has identity protection with something quite close to Lifelock
4. Don’t pay ANY identity protection service for a subscription directly. You can get the service more affordably as an add-on to a service to which you already are a member or a subscriber.

SHARE SPECIFIC SEGMENTS OF THIS VIDEO BY COPYING AND PASTING THE URLS BELOW

TIMESTAMP SHORTLINKS FOR THE VIDEO THAT GOES WITH THESE NOTES:
Deed Fraud:https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=128
Title Insurance: https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=245
Bank Account Theft: https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=359
Tips For Avoiding Bank Account Theft
Stop Banking At Banks: https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=483
Enable Two Step Verification: https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=620
Enable Alerts From Your Banking Institution: https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=987
Text Scams: https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=1242
How Seniors Can Avoid Being Victims Of A Text Scam
Ignore Texts Asking For Money: https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=1403
Don't Click Links In The Text Message: https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=1522
Check People Out: https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=1648
Preventative Measures
Freeze Your Credit: https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=1793
Find Out If You Are Paying For ID and Computer Protection You Have Not Actually Activated
https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=1887
Don't Let Frontier Cable Rip You Off: https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=2118
Do Not Purchase Lifelock: https://youtu.be/6WYJEO5fBPo?t=2393

VIDEO PLAYLISTS YOU MAY WISH TO CHECK OUT
Avoiding Scams Targeted Towards Seniors
Helping Seniors With Technology