Latest / Aging Parent TrapX / Aging Parents getting SCAMMED
Transcript
- speaker-0: Apparently it was Google who called my dad, wanted to get into his computer to correct the problem and needed his login and his passwords and all this stuff. And he was just freely giving him all this information. speaker-1: Scammers be scamming. They scam us, they scam our parents, and we have got to have conversations with our aging parents so that they don't get taken advantage of, that their bank accounts aren't compromised, that their computers aren't compromised. That is what we are talking about today. I'm Allison Newnan, the broker owner of Platinum Properties of Florida in the Greater Tampa area, and I'm here with Julie Cook of Generational Transitions and Nikki Flynn. of Elite Preparation Services. And we're talking about how to help Gen Xers navigate their aging parents' senior years, and specifically talking about the scams that are out there. Nikki, continue on with what happened with your dad, stepdad. I'm not sure which one. was your stepdad, right? So he's opening up a Google thing and then... speaker-0: Yeah, it's, it's beeping and screaming and yelling at him. And so he, it says to call this number, it's Microsoft or Google's phone number and he calls it and it's a very non English speaking person and tells him his name is Mark. or some generic name and asked for all his credentials, asked for his login information, his password information, starts going through all his things. He doesn't know any better. He doesn't use a password keeper. So everything is saved on his computer. And now this person has access to everything. So I quickly realized what happened. I turned off the computer because whatever he had done, he had embedded into the computer. ⁓ and had to go through and notify all his credit cards, all his banks, change all his username and passwords, let them all know that he was hacked. And then I also had to get out of his email address and create a whole new email address. And to be able to try to explain to somebody who did not grow up with computers why you can't use your old email address anymore, but it's still a username when you log into some websites. ⁓ has been a struggle still to this day and it's been over five years. speaker-1: Well, speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-0: But can't I go in it now? It's safe now. No. speaker-1: No, that's what they call the imposter, the imposter scam. They'll use text, calls, emails. Scammers are pretending to be a company like, for instance, USAA Insurance. I'm looking at something I got from, a real thing I got from USAA, but it comes from an official looking phone number or an email address. And they say that there's an account issue and they ask you for personal details. And most legitimate companies will not contact you by phone to, you know, hey, if somebody ever calls me and says, ⁓ hey, you know, we need to verify your social security number or, mean, I don't even think that's private anymore, honestly, but, or we need to verify your credit card number. Yeah. So imposters just, they need to know not to, to do that. And having that kind of conversation with our parents. speaker-0: You know, I want to piggyback on that real quick because since we're talking about the fact that we're talking about our aging parents, the one thing that they will always do and always fall victim of is they give everybody their Medicare number, their Medicare card number. That is like your social security number. You don't just get a new one just because somebody else might have hacked it and taken it. So they get phone calls all the time. from those third party companies, which is against the law, but they use spoofing phone numbers so they can't catch them. And they say, ⁓ give me your Medicare number. I'll qualify you for benefits or I'll see what benefits you qualify for. And they freely give them their card number, which is their red, white and blue card. So remind, it's just like getting a social security card. You only get one. That's it. It's an act of Congress to get them to get you a new one. and they freely give this information to people. They disenroll these seniors in their insurance plans and they don't even know it. They find out the hard way. They enroll other people under their Medicare card number. So that is a huge scam that they fall victim of all the time because they don't know any better. And it's not publicly taught that they should never give that number out. speaker-1: I mean, when is it safe to give that number out, just like when you're at the doctor's office or? speaker-0: Actually never, because unless you're using that as your sole only insurance, the only time you should be using it is when you go to the hospital. Otherwise, you have other insurance cards that piggyback with that. you're never giving that red, white, and blue card out to anybody. But it's just an uneducated part process of Medicare and as they're aging that nobody is ever taught. So unfortunately, that's what they fall victim of. When they get that and somebody has stolen their Medicare number and they're enrolling them in other plans and stuff, at that point, what can you do? Now you have to fight with the government to prove that that's not you. And it's unfortunate. speaker-1: Yeah. What do you know, Julie? Do you know anything about that particular one? speaker-2: So yes, so I've run into a lot of seniors who get calls from insurance companies all day long. And so they're prone to take those calls and they get sold on the fact that we offer a better deal. We have these benefits and so they change plans. Maybe not so much a scam, they might be legitimate, but I've had people who had great coverage who gave that all away on, have this, you we're going to give you a $50 gift card or something. speaker-0: The freebies, it's speaker-2: The freebies, yes. so I think educating your family members on the fact that don't just take something over the phone. Ask for information in writing so you can compare. If they're trying to rush you to make a decision over the phone, that's a good reason to not make that decision because there's a reason they're trying to push you to do it right now, right now. speaker-1: Yeah, but before we did one of these calls the other day, I got a call from the person had a beautiful, very like handsome, masculine, like singer type voice. Like he was really, it was a sexy voice man. And he goes, this is Sergeant so-and-so from Pasco County, which is the county that in which I reside. And he said, you missed a court date. and the honorable such and such judge is going to hold you in contempt. And I knew, I knew what was going to happen next. Cause I've heard about this scam. say you're going to be held in contempt because you didn't show up for jury duty or something like that. And then, but if you ⁓ pay us $50 or a hundred dollars right now, then it'll be removed and you'll be excused. And so I started to laugh at him and I said, I don't know who you think you're you know, talking to here, but nice try, nice try, sir. And it caught him off guard because, you know, he said, what do you mean? You know, like I'm a Sergeant with the, so somebody can sound, I mean, that's their whole job is to scam people out of money. And I said, no, but the next person might say yes. And the next person, and they're going to keep going. All they have to do to have like a good living is have five to 10 people say yes a day for a hundred smackers, right? Yeah. speaker-2: I've seen that happen a lot with utilities too. They'll call, say if you don't pay right now, your electric is getting ready to be turned off. It's the middle of summer, it's 90 plus degrees and they'll pay over the phone. And what's interesting is sometimes they'll ask for the payment via gift card information, know, just odd things like that, that maybe we would be like, no, but seniors are like, yeah, you know, I can do that. Or they'll go to Walmart and send money. And so I think the biggest thing to let your senior parent know is if something sounds off, if someone calls and demands for you to do something right then, that's a good reason to hang up and call that company directly. Utility, insurance, know, the sheriff's office, whatever it is, call them directly. Don't do anything. speaker-1: What about the Venmo scam? So the Venmo scam is you get the message from some, get a deposit into your Venmo account from somebody you don't know and you're like, ⁓ my gosh, somebody gave me a thousand dollars or maybe they give you a hundred dollars. Well, it doesn't matter the amount. Then you get a message and says, ⁓ my gosh, I am so sorry that I accidentally sent you this money. Would you send it back to me? And the person says, okay, sure. You know, it's not my money. I'll send it back to you. And then later you find out that what they did was they put money into your account with like a stolen credit card, right? And then you give them back that money and it then, but the credit card company comes after you and says that money was never yours to begin with because it was a stolen credit card and we're taking it out. So you're out the money. Like you thought you were doing something nice by giving the mistake person their money back, but somehow the way it works is that you, you are literally out the money. So don't ever do that. Say no and keep it because it'll be taken out anyways. speaker-2: I just had this this week, my debit card got scammed and I've had this happen twice now where it comes across. That's why, as we're talking about ways to help protect your family, if they're app savvy, have them get a bank app so they can see charges on a regular basis. I know like my dad and stepmom, they still wait for their monthly bank statement to come in and they reconcile that. But at that point, somebody so so they tapped my account for $2. And this has happened before where as soon as it approves, now they're going to go in and try and tap me for $200. They just need to see if that card works. And so as soon as the $2 came through, I reached out to the bank. Bank said, yes, this appears to be fraudulent. They shut down my card. It's a pain, but it saved the next charge, which from experience I knew was coming. So I think that's something to let your seniors that you love be aware of. that they need to check their bank account on a regular basis, not just once a month, because once a month, something crazy could happen by the time you get that information. speaker-1: Well, and sometimes you forget. look at my statements for my business account and I was like, what was that charge? Because sometimes I'll buy like different software or something, like the software we're using to do this on it. And, you know, it's called Riverside, but it might come across as something else. And now I have a charge on my credit card and I'm like, what is that $150 or whatever? can't remember because it was 25 days ago or or when I'm reconciling with QuickBooks. You know, I'm not, well, maybe I technically am very close to a senior citizen, but I'm not, I don't consider myself old, darn it. ⁓ You know, I'm savvy with apps and all that kind of stuff, but if you're not, you could be. I think it is important to our parents some of these strategies for sure, because we, you know, just even ordering your own groceries, checking the bank apps. But also, you know, they're on Facebook. A lot of people are on Facebook. know, Gen X or parents, they're on, my mom calls it Facebook. That's an excellent place for you to get scammed. If you're not careful, you can get a message. If a link comes through and you click on it, it seems official. Don't click on any links. I think that's good advice in general, if you don't know who it's from. But being careful on Facebook, you shouldn't. somebody will friend you and they have either no profile picture or maybe like three friends or something. There's a problem with that because Facebook has been around for a long time and I'm lonely. just looking for friends. Well, maybe your senior parent is a little lonely and looking for some friends and they think Facebook is a friendly place, but it's any opportunity that a scammer can have. Like there's even the pet one. Now, probably seniors aren't necessarily out there getting new pets, but like, have you seen the one where the scammer uses your love for pets to trick you into paying for an animal that does not exist? They post cute pictures of puppies and kittens and offer them at great prices or whatever. They ask for the money upfront and then for shipping and vaccines or whatever. And then you pay, never comes. speaker-2: She She showed me these two puppies that she was going to get. She was moving into a senior living community and these were going to be her companions. She had named them. She had paid for them and they did not exist. And I kept saying, you followed? Have you followed through? No, no, no, this is a legitimate company and total scam. speaker-1: I'm surprised to hear that you knew somebody that fell for that. That's so sad. Money for anything. Well, and then people want to help. They want to donate to causes. So you have to be careful that it's a legit organization. Like even the rescue organizations. And I don't know how you, I mean, I do know how you can find out if organizations are legit. And so I guess the conversation is, you know, with your, know, just don't give anybody any money for anything. I see that it sounds like you're treating them like a baby, but they're trying to protect them at the same time. Did you see, okay, so you guys, here's this other one I just saw recently. You know when you go onto a website and then you get that crazy like CAPTCHA thing with, know, pick out all the things that are bikes, right? Okay, so now there's a new one out there and it tells you click, ⁓ you know, control, period, do dad, do dad, this, that, and you're just like, ⁓ this is the new CAPTCHA. So you're typing it in. And what you're typing in is a secret code to allow the people on the other end of the world somewhere access into your computer. I haven't heard of that. Yes. was, it was on the news, I believe. I might've saved the article. If I find that article, I'll put it in ⁓ the description below. And I'll also put this really handy thing. And these are links, sorry, so I'm saying don't click on links from strangers, but you can even go to usaa.com and search like security, identity, security, because they have, this is like just not a login page. It's just talking about, you know, different scams and stuff. You can type in things into your computer. You can look at a link and type in something similar to that without all the extra stuff to get to a website to see if it's even legitimate. But like news channel eight, for example, that's going to be legitimate, but we'll put these a couple of links in the description below. We're not trying to scam you. ⁓ and the IRS, we just got done with April 15th. People have extended their returns in many cases. So, you know, there's a second tax season in September and October, but the IRS will never ever, ever, ever, ever. And if you call them, you might be on hold for a very long time, but like they do all of their correspondence via mail, not email, but mail mail. So if you ever get any type of, ⁓ you owe this to the IRS and you owe it today from a phone call, that's a scam. speaker-2: There was one, I'm trying to think recently, because I'm with you, Allison, I'm getting older, but I don't consider myself a senior yet, that I was really, but I was concerned about, like it was something legitimate. And then the more they talked, I had to remind myself, wait a minute, this doesn't seem right. Or I can call the company legitimately and make sure this is, and it turned out to be a total scam. ⁓ The other thing too, I know. speaker-1: It turned out to be a scam. speaker-2: It turned out to be a scam, because they call, I mean, y'all know this, they'll call and they'll get you stressed out about something that has to be dealt with right away, because there's an issue. And so your mind is just racing. And then the more they talk, the more like my brain kicked in, like, wait a minute, you know, if that's the case, I'm going to call the company legitimately and get this, you know, resolved. And it turned out to be a scam. The other thing that I've seen lately that I'm sure y'all have seen are tolls, getting text messages about tolls and... Things like that that you need to address and it seems so easy to be like, ⁓ I ran a toll. Let me just peg it. speaker-1: Cause you can't, you don't remember if you're on a toll road and not my daughter fell for that. 25 year old daughter fell for that last year. I think they said we're going to revoke her driver's license or her, her license plate or something. She asked us afterwards, talk to your aging parents and your kids. Yes, I guess is the point. Basically. The main things that you want to talk to your parents about are being contacted, unsolicited contact, posing as someone you trust seems like, okay, I should trust this person. Hmm, maybe not. Pressure to act fast, emotional manipulation, sympathy, excitement, and try to influence your decisions. It might be a scam. Then a request to pay in specific ways like a gift card or something like that. speaker-0: Yeah, they like to spoof, they like to steal people's phone numbers. I mean, the moral of the story is we have to educate them on being aware of, you know, what they're clicking on, who they're answering the phone to. If something does not seem right, they need to check with us or call the company themselves. And if they are lonely and you know that they're lonely, get them a pet or get them involved in senior communities like that. They need interaction because that's if they're sitting at home alone, that's when they're going to get in the most trouble because they just want that person to talk to. speaker-1: So stay cautious, take your time, only trust verified sources, protect your info. Those are things you wanna talk to your senior parent about. If you would like to reach out to any one of us, information is in the description below. We wanna know what you think. Please leave a comment and don't forget to subscribe.