3 types of phone scams that target seniors
Does it seem like you are getting more scam phone calls than ever?
You’re not alone!
It turns out that all around the country, there has been an uptick in scam callers.
And like any scam, they always play on the vulnerabilities of innocent citizens.
In this post, I will share how you can recognize 3 of the commonest phone scams that play on their vulnerabilities of seniors.
3 types of phone scams that target seniors
No matter what they say, don’t give them pertinent information
There are scam callers who will typically start off by saying they from your electric, water company, your bank or even the IRS.
Usually, right after that introduction, they will follow up with the question “Can I have you verify your address for me?”
While this seems like a harmless question, it is a way to get you to reveal more information about yourself.
You see, these scammers are well-versed in psychological tricks and usually, if they can get you to give up one bit of information about yourself, it is likely you will continue to share that information with them.
They will try to intimidate you. Don’t fall for it.
Another tactic scammers use these days is to purport that they are calling from a governmental agency and that if you don’t give them the information you are looking for, you will be arrested.
No government agency in the United States will call you with this information.
They will send a piece of snail mail to your home address.
And it is usually after multiple attempts to reach you this way that an arrest will happen.
If they claim they are calling from your bank or mortgage company, hang up the phone, find a piece of mail that has your bank or mortgage company’s number and call them directly using that number to verify the situation.
So if someone calls saying they are from the IRS or US Department of Education, 99.9% of the time, they are lying.
Technology scammers may try to pull the wool over older adults’ eyes
Another popular scam is one where the scammer calls and says they are calling from Microsoft.
They follow that up by saying they are receiving “problematic” signals from your computer.
These types of scammers usually play on the fact that an older adult may not be tech savvy.
I have heard of situations where these scammers were able to get an older person to pay them for a “service to fix the problematic signals”.
Don’t fall for this one either.
You have worked way too hard to get scammed by people looking for cheap ways to make money.
Share this with someone else so they can avoid these types of scams.