I was thinking about this after the post about the sheriff (see my comment history).
For context, the scam involves using stolen information and AI voice fakes in order to convince someone that their friend / family member is calling about some trouble that they need money for. Read more:
- https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/family-social-supports/seniors/financial-legal-matters/scams-and-fraud/grandparent-scams
- https://thewalrus.ca/grandparent-scam/
I’ve talked to my older friends / family, but I worry that they might overestimate their ability to notice the scam. I think it would be a lot more effective to show them how easy it is and what it might sound like.
However, even on this post, I don’t want people to share resources that scammers could then use to hurt more people. So far I’ve thought of:
- videos comparing the real person to the fake call
- sharing info over DMs
- a more complicated setup where community orgs set up a station where people can attend in person to try it out
If they’re not people that you would ordinarily ask for money from, the simplest answer is to just make sure they understand that.
And that “you” asking for money out of the blue is suspicious.
For people in you immediate support system… they should know that there’s very few crisis that require immediate decisions and none of them need cash wired to foreign bank accounts or stashed on gift cards or in bitcoin.
And certainly not from an unknown number.
The focus there should be on verifying it’s you. (By hanging up and calling you direct.$