Ask HN: How do you protect your parents from tech scammers?
simple... they call me first.
if there is one thing i have _never_ done to my parents, or _anyone_ for that matter, is make fun of them if they call me and ask me for my professional opinion in tech matters. this has extended to situations when they think the situation is shoddy like they are being taken in a scam. i think _this_ is the single reason why my parents have never fell victim to scams. i feel that _most_ parents, or elderly people for that matter, fall victim cause they feel pressure from both ends... the first being the scammers themselves, the second being scared to ask _anyone_ if the situation is legit for fear of being made fun of.
_noone_ should feel scared of being ridicule when asking any question regarding their safety or well-being.
I had a text from her when I woke up the other day, she'd bought a new phone and now the company was asking weird questions.
I figure for sure it's a scam and I phoned her immediately. But I gradually realised it's actually not what I thought. I normally buy phones by just... buying a phone, like a cheeseburger or a T-shirt, cash or card. But she's got a new phone on contract, so that's a credit deal and the questions they're asking, though prying, are credit agency ID confirm questions. Where you've lived, photo of a passport, stuff like that. The firm seems legit, they're not new to the business, they have a relationship to a Credit Reference Agency that I've worked with before, so it's probably fine.
She seems reassured that I'd actually thought through why this might be OK, and so long as her new iPhone shows up in the next few days all is good, otherwise I guess I need to walk her through anti-fraud processes in case somebody got all that as precursor to taking out credit in her name.
With my mother I got a call from her one day because her PC was literally screaming. She'd clicked a link or visited a web site or something and now it was constantly loudly demanding she phone the scammers and give them money to "unlock" it. She'd had the peace of mind to instead walk into another room and call me. I talked her through switching it off, bringing it up in safe mode and forgetting the (hijacked) default page on the browser. Relatively simple scam, but I expect it's effective on too many people.
Non-scam related story, but my mother called me once panicked, saying the computer is on fire and she's worried it will burn. It took me some time to understand what she meant by the computer is on fire. I had Linux installed on her PC, I think Xubuntu, and it's running xscreensaver by default. xscreensaver logo looks like a computer on fire. My mother thought that she has to react quickly otherwise the PC will burn.
Ask HN: How do you protect your parents from tech scammers?
simple... they call me first.
if there is one thing i have _never_ done to my parents, or _anyone_ for that matter, is make fun of them if they call me and ask me for my professional opinion in tech matters. this has extended to situations when they think the situation is shoddy like they are being taken in a scam. i think _this_ is the single reason why my parents have never fell victim to scams. i feel that _most_ parents, or elderly people for that matter, fall victim cause they feel pressure from both ends... the first being the scammers themselves, the second being scared to ask _anyone_ if the situation is legit for fear of being made fun of.
_noone_ should feel scared of being ridicule when asking any question regarding their safety or well-being.