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If an email elicits an emotional response, stop. Take some time, have your partner or another person read it.

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Welcome to the Healthy Screen Habits Podcast.

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I'm Hillary Wilkinson.

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Whether you're starting your parenting journey with

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a newborn or looking to connect with

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your teen on technology, let's learn some new Healthy Screen habits together.

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Welcome to Healthy Screen Habits. I am so glad you're here today, especially since we're just one day away from Thanksgiving. And while we are all thinking about gratitude and loneliness, we also can't ignore the fact that we've got Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Holidays are coming right at us. Or holiday shopping, I should say, is coming right at us. You might be thinking about online shopping for the upcoming holiday season as well as other family members. And today I wanted to take a little bit of time to talk about something that doesn't feel quite as festive, but but it is still very important and that is the growing threat of online scams on our older adult population. So who will be engaging in a lot of online shopping? That's how that all ties together. So we've got parents, grandparents, neighbors, but this is all how we can kind of stay alert, savvy, one step ahead, right? And we're talking about this before Thanksgiving,

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clearly.

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Like I said, the shopping is right around the corner. Maybe you've already gotten yours done. My hat is tipped to you if that's the case. But we do often see surges of online shopping, also charitable giving, and then follow up emails that come right, shipping updates, add on deals. It's just a slew of emails that come afterwards. And unfortunately within all that mix, scammers are looking to take advantage of all of it. So the timing is perfect. Right now, people are in a little bit of that compressed prepare shop, share mindset. And that's why the scammers start circling. It's something that you may want to bring up at family gatherings and it's a little bit touchy, but. But our senior citizens are some of our most targeted population and may be more vulnerable. So you could share this episode or brush up on some facts and share what you know with them. I kind of took a deep dive into the scale of the problem. Let's start with some statistics to show how very real this is. According to the FBI's elder fraud data, in 2023 than 101,000 complaints were filed by people aged 60 and older about Internet crime. And losses topped in that year 3.4 billion, which at that point was 11% increase from 2022. The average dollar loss for older adults in these frauds and cyber frauds is high. It's about the $33,915 per incident in recent data. And I looked at some sites that look at senior data. Specifically, seniors lost $1.5 billion in fraud in the first half of 2025 alone. And although younger adults experience fraud at similar rates as older adults, victims age 60 and above report higher median losses than younger adults. Now, interestingly, the highest rates of fraud amongst that 60 plus age group in the first half of 2025 happened in Nevada, New Hampshire and Arizona. 77% of seniors are confident that they can spot scams. Yet when that same group was tested on a variety of texts and phishing type things, of those 77%, 33% clicked on a fake package. Delayed text. Everybody falls victim, okay. Shopping scams dominate actual fraud incidents. Among seniors who've been scammed, 62% fell victim to online shopping scams, far outpacing those delivery text scams and gift cards schemes or fake charities which come in anywhere from the 11% to 2%. Many victims don't even report scams or fraud. And so nearly one quarter of senior scam victims didn't report the incident to anyone, including police or family members, because they felt embarrassed. Only 38% of seniors always use two factor authentication, and 13% rarely or never use it. And this leaves their accounts vulnerable to hacking. So as the 2025 holiday season kind of gets underway, we're shopping, donating, celebrating, but with all the digital convenience, like I said, those scammers are circling and kind of riding that rising tide of deception. So what this tells us also is that yes, older adults in some categories may statistically less likely to report the online shopping scams, but when they do get hit or when they are hurt, the dollar amounts are higher than the younger adults that are reporting it or not reporting it. And that's simply because they've got more assets, they've got more savings, and maybe they have less digital support or can even be isolated. So tomorrow, while we're sitting down for turkey or shopping around, open the conversation on protecting ourselves, people we care about. And I'm going to just list off some typical scam scenarios to keep in mind that are particularly relevant for older adults. But honestly, they apply to everyone. So it's something that everyone in the shared conversation can benefit from. So one of the scams is, I'm sure you've all experienced the tech support or your computer is compromised type scams. And these often work by you get A pop up or someone calls and says your computer is infected or you owe fees. And this is one of the most common ones for older folks. The best way to deal with that, don't click anything, shut out of everything and restart. Okay. There's also a scam where there's an impersonation of trusted entities. So like the caller or the email claims to be from your bank or the irs, a shipping company asking for urgent action payment or remote access. And older adults may fall prey because they're an agency, they seem to be a trusted source. And the sense of urgency. This is where I cannot state enough. If an email elicits an emotional response, stop, take some time, have your partner or another person read it. And honestly, this embarrassingly, this just happened to me and I fell for it because we were traveling and something happened and I, I was rattled and I immediately responded. And thankfully my husband was able to, you know, jump in and say. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't call myself the healthy screen habits lady. So that's the other thing that's happening around this time of year is our schedules get disrupted with travel and time changes and everything else and we're just not on our game. So it happens to everybody. That was a bitter pill to swallow for me. Okay, so also we've got online shopping scams which are especially, especially relevant with holiday deals, the increased online purchases. And maybe they're touting a great deal that requires, you know, sites are requiring payment up front, or there's a fake website or you could pay and you never receive the item. I mean, there's a whole variety of ways that the online shopping scams run. And that's, it's a, that's a big one. You can show older adults how to check for a valid website, whether it's got the HTTP in front of it or a little padlock symbol. You want to show them how to make, you know, verify a secure website and never click through from social media, go to a website directly. There's also, like I said, the non delivery, non payment scams where you buy something, you pay and you don't get it. Some people, you know, do a lot of selling online marketplaces. If you list something to sell, you ship it, someone quote unquote pays you, but it turns out to be fraudulent. So that so many transactions kick into place around this time of year, it just increases exposure. One area that particularly grandparents are targeted are these what they call like family crisis scams. And these aren't always for seniors but seniors, meaning senior citizens, but grandparents, slash, senior citizens are often targeted because someone posing as a family member knows that, like, that's a point of vulnerability. They're going to try, they're going to worry, and they may rush to help the family member who's calling and posing as a grandchild and saying they need help or something along those lines. And, and with AI, we've got a lot of voice cloning or deep fake impersonations. And there's growing evidence that scammers are using voice cloning or AI to impersonate trusted family members, which is particularly scary for older folks who may rely on hearing a familiar voice to establish trust. And so to combat that, really, really, what all the experts I have talked to have said, the best thing to do is to establish a family safe word, which is like the ones that we teach our kids, like when they're very little, like, don't get into a car with anyone who doesn't know this particular word, or go with another adult who doesn't know the family password. So if, if maybe you're dealing with someone who has some memory issues. Another approach is to encourage your family to ask that only each other would know. So, for example, the one that came to my mind was what color were the chairs in the living room in the house we grew up in? And my sister who listens to this podcast, I guarantee you, knows exactly what chairs I'm talking about and knows the color. So you can kind of think of that specifically. But bear in mind, you may even want a list of those questions posted on the refrigerator or something like that, so that you know when you're rattled or when your loved one is rattled, they're not having to think of it. You can maybe just generate a list of questions together. Okay, so when we look at online shopping scams, what you're looking out for are deals that seem to wait, you know, way too good to be true. Huge discounts on luxury items. Sellers who are asking for non standard payment methods like gift cards, cryptos, wire, wire transfer, total red flags, websites that mimic real ones, but the URL is slightly off. Again, that's something to teach your senior citizens to look for. You're looking for that HTTPs or the padlock. Then also the surprise texts or emails that say your package is delayed, click here. Or, or you must pay additional shipping, et cetera. Well, text tracking is offered by the US Postal system. I've looked it up myself. And unless you initiated the tracking, the post office will not be sending you texts. So unless it is a specific package that you like go in. You have to click into it and say, I want this tracked by the, or by the post system. They will not be sending you texts. So the other thing is, you know, on social media where there we often get all these ads. And when you click through social media ads and find a site, they're not always legitimate sites. So like I said, don't, you know, recommend going to a site itself. Don't look it up, don't just click through social media. Tips for safer online shopping is use a credit card rather than a debit card when buying online because credit cards have stronger protections. This is something that you not only want to go over with your senior citizens, but also young adults who are shopping online maybe for the first time when they're away at college or they're trying to, you know, they're exercising independence, they're doing great things. But we, we do need to teach them kind of those next steps also. So before buying, you check the URL, look for misspellings, look for the HTTPs and the padlock icon. I'm kind of going over all the things that I know to think of also, you know, just the monitoring of bank and credit card statements after purchases. Any suspicious charges that you that are on there, you want to follow up with. And for older adults, you want to explicitly tell them, make sure that they know you're available to check sites or go over, you know, payments or anything that they have concerns with before doing something they might later regret. So I want to highlight, there's a terrific resource. The organization is called pause take9 and the website is pause take9.org. I'll link that in the show notes. And they have a really great motto, which I'm sure you figured out. It's pause and take nine seconds before you click download or share. They started in partnership with Consumer Reports as well as Common Sense Media. So they're, they're very vetted in the digital wellness space. And here are their tips, which I thought were worth repeating. One was to use a password manager. They recommend using an app to generate and store long unique passwords rather than reusing the same ones. They also recommend that you update your software enable automatic updates, which keeps your operating system, apps and browser up to date to help patch vulnerabilities. Here's one that I didn't know about that I was like, oh, that's interesting because often I don't do this. They say to restart your devices weekly. A quick restart once a week can apply security updates, stop potential threats and improve performance. And I work on an old school desktop and I, I do not restart my device weekly. I need to start doing that. So the other things that they recommend are establishing Multi Factor Authentication, which is two factor authentication. It adds an extra layer of security. So even if a password is stolen, there's another barrier. Those are those websites that will ask you for a password and then they'll ask you like for your phone number, like is it okay to text to this number? And so then you enter the password and then they'll say like a code was just sent to this, this phone number and you have to have. So it, it gets a little cumbersome with both devices, but it is definitely worth it. And if in doubt, always just freeze your credit. Okay. If you think your information has been compromised, you can freeze your credit through the top three credit agencies and it's very easy to do and I cannot encourage people to do that enough. So when I visited the pause59.org website I really appreciated how they boiled things down into real smart actionable habits rather than fear mongering. And I think it's really worth just a peek. And like I said, I'll keep that, I'll put that up in the the show notes. What I hope you're going to take away from our chat today is that this is a lovely time of year, full of wonderful things of sharing and connecting with our friends and family. But it is also a very busy, low hanging fruit time of year for scammers. And the biggest takeaway is that seniors are senior citizens are amongst the group most targeted for high loss scams. So it's just, it's, it's tricky talking sometimes with older generations but I do find that they are welcome for help with technology and just letting them know that online shopping is a big area of risk and you are there to help them and support them and you can even give them that website, the paws59.org for no nonsense tips that you and your loved ones can act on. And this Thanksgiving and beyond, we at Healthy Screen Habits wish you health and happiness, reminding you that a little vigilance goes a long way and we want to protect ourselves, stay safe and remember the spirit of the holiday. So we're going to be thankful for our connections, for the tech that helps us stay in touch and also for you know, the legitimate deals that you can enjoy. But we also want to be just a little bit smarter about how we protect what matters and that's each other. So Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Healthy Screen Habits and we are grateful for you.