How to talk to older people in your life about scams

This summer, Daniel Goldstein’s 86-year-old mom got an email that looked like it was from her bank. She was alarmed because she hadn’t spent the money it mentioned, so she called a help number on the email. The person on the other end of the line asked for her bank account information and made her believe she would get her money back. Instead, she lost $600 to a scammer.

Last year, consumers of all ages were scammed out of $8.8 billion. And older adults lost the most money compared to other age groups, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

While everyone wants to protect their parents and grandparents from scammers, sometimes these