Advice From Your Advocates
Advice From Your Advocates
Scams & Seniors: How to Protect Your Loved Ones from Cybercrime
In this episode of Advice From Your Advocates Podcast, Elder Law Attorney Bob Mannor and Art Bowker, a cybercrime expert with over 40 years in law enforcement, discuss tactics cybercriminals use and how we can protect ourselves and our loved ones—especially seniors—from becoming victims.
Bob and Art explore the rise of sophisticated scams, from phishing emails to AI-generated voice fraud, and highlight the warning signs caregivers and elder care professionals should watch for. Art’s collaboration with Todd Shipley brings valuable insights into how both the public and law enforcement are working to combat these growing digital threats.
Key topics include securing seniors' financial and digital assets, placing fraud alerts or credit freezes, and family involvement in protecting older relatives.
Learn how to foster open communication and take proactive steps to prevent financial exploitation. This episode provides actionable cybersecurity tips tailored to caregivers and elder care professionals.
Episode Takeaways
- Cybersecurity is crucial for protecting the elderly.
- Scammers are increasingly targeting seniors with sophisticated tactics.
- Data breaches can affect anyone, including law enforcement professionals.
- Education and awareness are key to preventing scams.
- Establishing trust and verification methods is essential.
- AI is enhancing the capabilities of scammers.
- Families should be vigilant about their loved ones' financial activities.
- Regularly updating software and security measures is necessary.
- Open communication about finances can prevent exploitation.
- Proactive discussions about care and finances should happen early.
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ABOUT US:
Mannor Law Group helps clients in all matters of estate planning and elder law including special needs planning, veterans’ benefits, Medicaid planning, estate administration, and more. We offer guidance through all stages of life.
We also help families dealing with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other illnesses that cause memory loss. We take a comprehensive, holistic approach, called Life Care Planning. LEARN MORE...
You're listening to Advice from your Advocates, a show where we provide elder law advice to professionals who work with the elderly and their families. I'm really excited about this Advice from your Advocates. So we've been doing Advice from your Advocates for about two years, and this is a topic that we really haven't covered enough, and so, in honor of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we have Art Oker to talk about cybersecurity and how there is so much sophistication with these scams that are out there and that they are targeting our seniors and they're targeting folks with dementia, and he gives fantastic tips. This is a really great podcast. I recommend that you listen to it from beginning to end, because there's so many tips and ideas to help you and me avoid those scams, but also our parents and our patients and our residents and our loved ones. So I really think you'll like this podcast and enjoy.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to Advice from your Advocates. I'm Bob Manor. I'm a certified elder law attorney in Michigan and I am excited about today's podcast. I think you will be too. This is really really important information, and so far we have not covered this topic, and it's a very important topic, and so I'm excited to introduce you to Art Boker. His website is thecybersafetyguyscom, which we'll mentiona few more times. But, art, why don't you introduce yourself to us?
Speaker 2:Well, bob, thanks for having me Again. My name is Art Boker. I am author of three books. Two of those I co-wrote with Todd Shipley, who is an experienced cybercrime investigator retired from Reno Police. I have over 40 years in law enforcement. A good percentage of that was as a US probation officer supervising cyber offenders. Okay, we developed a lot of expertise through that experience and Todd and I decided we wanted to help the general public understand how to protect themselves and how to survive a cyber attack. My mother's in assisted living and we were experiencing some of the concerns that they were being targeted by cyber criminals.
Speaker 2:So we devoted a whole chapter to help address these issues with elderly loved ones and provide tips on protecting them and signs to look for in case they have become a victim, and to take action to help them recover from those situations.
Speaker 1:Well, Art, that's so important and I think this is really important for our listeners. So I know that we've covered a variety of topics, but I think this is one of the more important topics because this is where you can really make an impact. A lot of times, the topics we're covering there's not like pure solutions. We can try to make it better, we can try to look at ways to increase quality of life. This is something where, if you know the red flags, if you know what to do to protect yourself the red flags, if you know what to do to protect yourself there is a significant way that you can make a difference, that your family does not fall victim. Now, any of us can be victims, right, Art?
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely. In fact, we make the point that in this day and age, you can lock down your computer, make it as secure as possible, but your data is being held by somebody else, right, they drop the ball and your data is leaked and uh, in fact, both uh myself and my co-author have been victims of data breaches. Wow, that has been exposed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's probably all of us right, I mean with different companies that we've used, and we get that message saying, hey, our data has been compromised and, you know, sometimes they'll offer to pay for had not only our dates of birth and social security numbers and whatnot, but also had our parents and close relatives. Contact information.
Speaker 2:So it was a significant breach.
Speaker 1:So, art, you mentioned three books and I want to make sure that this is accurate. If they're interested in getting copies of those books, can they find those books on your website, thecybersafetyguyscom.
Speaker 2:Yes, and they're all through Amazon. The first book, which I wrote myself, has to deal with managing cyber offenders as a probation or parole officer. Our second book together was Investigating Internet Crimes and it was teaching law enforcement technology and walking them through how to collect information online and doing undercover investigations so it could be used in a legal setting for prosecution, search warrants, that type of thing and that book. You know, both Todd and I have had experience teaching police officers and other law enforcement technical issues and explaining it to them so they could understand it and make it work, and we wanted to bring that same expertise or skill to explaining the same technical concepts to the general public. In fact, we've pushed with our publisher. This is not an IT book. This is a book for the general public. We do talk about technology and when we do we explain it. We include checklists and things to do and things to cover, but it is meant for the general public.
Speaker 1:So if they go to Amazon, I'm betting that they could search by your name, art Boker. But what are the names of those three books?
Speaker 2:The first book is the Cyber Crime Handbook for Community Corrections. The second book is Investigating Internet Crimes and the third book is Surviving Cyber Attack.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's great. So let's talk a little bit more about you. This, uh, my notes indicate that you have 40 years of experience in dealing with cyber crime. Tell me a little bit more about that 40 years of experience.
Speaker 2:Well, I actually I started as a county probation officer and I was at that time. Cyber crime was a hacker who, uh, you know, maybe hacked into something, or an insider who changed some code and was able to do like a salami technique and steal like one cent from an account, and I was kind of fascinated by that.
Speaker 2:You know that kind of crime, but it wasn't anywhere near what we're experiencing now right I went to work for the Department of Labor doing union embezzlement cases and through that I developed skills in using computers and downloading financial data and understanding how useful a computer was for an investigator. And then I went to work for the US Probation Office, who was starting to experience a lot of cyber offenders and most of them were sex offenders. The development of the internet and computers really gave a shot to sex offenders because now they could take pictures inappropriate pictures. They didn't have to have it developed, they could network with one another and distribute it.
Speaker 2:But things have changed quite a bit since that time and now you know we always had romance games where somebody was reaching out to somebody and saying, you know developing some kind of relationship, and it was typically saying, you know developing some kind of relationship? And it was typically hey, I need money to meet you, can you give me airfare? And they would send the airfare to them and they would never see him again. You know, it was like a one and done type thing, or maybe I need some medication or something, can you help me out? And the people would send money.
Speaker 2:But now it has become literally a cottage industry for criminal organizations. They are using techniques where they are targeting the elderly and very sophisticated, and they're not happy with just getting you know like airfare. They want their entire retirement kids fund, whatever they can get. And there's a term for it. There's a Chinese phrase but it translates into pig butchering. Basically, they fatten up the target with love and attention and gain their trust and from there they spin a tale of you know you and I could be together. I have this lifestyle. I want to help you so that we can be together. You need to invest in these Usually it's cryptocurrency them false statements and show them pictures of them in fancy cars and on vacations and food and like, see, I've made this living and you would just connect with my uncle, who's very sophisticated in this, and they shower him with this love and attention. And the director that does reports about FinCEN, which is an organization that tracks financial issues involving crime, reported that these schemes can take like up to 100 days where they're showering with love and attention.
Speaker 2:They get them to invest. They show them the returns. Look how much money you're making. Get them to invest more money. It's basically a Ponzi scheme where they're not giving back any of the investment and then when the individuals want to take the money out, you know they've, like I've earned all this money.
Speaker 2:They're told you have to pay a 25% tax on that. Wow, they would take out loans to get that to pay that 25% tax. Pay it and then they're not getting anything. They're not getting the original investment. Of course the returns were all bogus and they're left defrauded loss. It's a emotional loss these folks feel can't trust anybody. It's really devastating. If you read some of the statements, the victim impact statements that we got from the federal courts and included in our book to show the harm, it's really heart-rending to see these folks' life savings be taken from them in, you know, in the comfort of their home.
Speaker 1:Right, hey, Art. So I you know this is really interesting and I know it seems obvious that the you know the scammers tend to target older folks. So I want you to talk a little bit about that. But it was occurring to me as you were just talking.
Speaker 1:One of the things that my parents experienced when they were alive was that they got so many of these calls and they got so used to it that they just stopped answering their phone. And the question I have for you is of course, these types of calls can come through on cell phones. I certainly still get some of those calls, but my parents were getting so many of those calls on their landline and what occurred to me at the time was the fact that my wife and I we don't have a landline anymore Younger people often don't have a landline anymore and the fact that my parents still had had that landline. That's where they were getting most of these scam calls and they still my dad. After my mom died, my dad called me a few times and was like I'm not sure about this one.
Speaker 1:This seems like it's real, but they were getting so many calls they were skeptical. So that's great, but I mean, imagine somebody that has a little bit more diminished capacity. Uh, you know trying to deal with this, but I'm wondering if there's a more of a target. Obviously there's more of a target towards seniors. Is it more on the landlines than as a cell phone, or is that distinction gone away now?
Speaker 2:well, I could tell you that I just got a text message, yesterday or the day before, where, uh, it starts off with hi um, how are you doing? And I'm going who is this? And they go this is diane.
Speaker 1:And they send me a picture and I go and diane is a young lady yeah, and I'm like I'm sorry you got the wrong number yeah well, you seem like a nice person and right, and it goes into that they target us, us old guys, right, you know we have a little grand out here, they start targeting us right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's. It's not just it's. It's happening on Facebook, it's happening on LinkedIn, it's happening on dating sites and cell phones. A person might not even have any social media and they're using the cell phone and they're hitting them with these. Uh, you know these like oh, you seem like a nice person and uh, uh, tell me about yourself. I'd like to be your friend and can we move this conversation to another application.
Speaker 1:That sounds like a red flag. Anytime somebody says I want to be your friend and you don't know them, that's a red flag. If they want to move it to a different application, that's a red flag, right yeah.
Speaker 2:I can't tell you how many 30-year-olds, 30-year-old women, are saying that you are the guy for me.
Speaker 1:I've always liked.
Speaker 1:We must be very attractive, you and I, because I get those texts too, and those are just so silly. So I want to ask you another thing, because if you're listening to this in real time, obviously some people listen to our podcast for years and in the future, but in real time it's 2024 election season and so I'm getting all these uh election texts that I know are scams. They're not coming from any of the legitimate uh candidates or any packs or any legitimate organization. They're just literally trying to get me to engage so that they can then engage and then try to do a scam. And I've seen enough of this that I can see some of those red flags and it's clear to me that these are not legitimate election texts. They are intentional to try to get you because you're interested in this party or this issue, and so then they try to get you engaged so that then they can try to scam you, right? Is that something that's a big deal during elections?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and they will take advantage of any situation, like the death of a famous person. They would do a post, and they've even made up posts, like I saw one where the King of England passed away.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Reasonably certain he didn't pass away, but it was a click click on this. You end up going there and you get a virus on your computer. We mentioned about your father getting calls. My father was a retired examiner for the banking industry and he was getting calls tech schemes, tech fraud support. I go, dad, microsoft is not calling you up, you know, to fix your computer. And the other one was they're saying they're from the FBI and there's a warrant for my arrest.
Speaker 2:Dad the FBI does not call you up and say there's a warrant for your arrest, they come out and get you. So and he was getting those on the landline. In fact, I fielded a couple of the calls and they wanted me to install something on the computer and I'm like.
Speaker 1:no, you and I were talking briefly before we started recording here, and I mentioned to you that I've been getting emails lately from other attorneys other attorneys that I know and trust, and so I'm sophisticated enough that I can recognize it. But, honestly, you know, if I get an email from somebody I know and trust and it's their actual email that I'm getting it from and it says hey, I want you to take a look at this, click on this, I need your advice on this. So to me that's a red flag, because anybody that I know they would never just say I need your advice, I want you to look at this. They would tell me why they want me to look at it. And so I knew immediately that it was fake. And so then I went because I assumed that it was maybe that they had made it look like it was coming from that email address. And so I went to their real email address, sent them an email and said hey, my friend, I think you're that somebody sending out fake emails for you. And I just want to let you know.
Speaker 1:I got an email back from their legitimate email address that said oh no, that's for real, please look at this. And I still knew it was fake because, like once I reached, reached out to them and said I think this is fake. They're clearly going to tell me why they want me to look at it and there was no reason why I would have had an interaction with them at that time. But you know, it was really very deceiving because it was somebody I know, somebody I trust it was their actual email. And so then I finally called them up and said hey, I know that both of these emails are fake.
Speaker 1:Did you know that they were sent? And as soon as I said it, they were like oh, we know, these are being sent out. I said did you know that they're responding to emails now that they have access, they have control of your email, because I sent you a real email. They sent me a real email back from your email address that acknowledged my email and said it was real. From your email address that acknowledged my email and said it was real. They're like no, we do not know that. So it's that sophisticated that if you don't know why, somebody is asking you to click on that link.
Speaker 2:Do not click on that link. Well, and you mentioned about the. You know that it used to be. You'd get an email and there would be misspellings and the syntax would be all wrong, and there would be misspellings and the syntax would be all wrong. With the advent of AI, those errors are going to be greatly diminished and gone. They're going to be very believable. There have been cases. There was a story out of Latin America where individuals were running the Garand parent scheme and what they were doing was downloading voices off of social media of loved ones, using those voices running them through AI.
Speaker 2:And they sounded like the person, the loved one, and they were using those to extort money out of people, wow.
Speaker 1:So I mean. So I think what I'm hearing from you is if you get something that is out of the ordinary even if it's your loved one, even if it's your grandchild, even if it's your child, even if it's your best friend and it sounds like them that you cannot trust. If it's out of the ordinary like why would my grandchild be calling me for bail? Like that doesn't seem consistent with this grandchild. Why would my friend be in latin america and they never told me that they were? Or why would they be on a cruise and they told me? They never told me they were being on that cruise. So you should just be skeptical of pretty much everything, right?
Speaker 2:exactly, and uh, you know we talk about um setting up a password with your loved ones that if you get a call from me and you question what it is, here's the path. This is the password we're going to use. We're not talking, and another thing is to reach out and talk to someone else and ask hey, is Johnny my grandchild? Talk to the mother, where's he at?
Speaker 1:He's home.
Speaker 2:Well, obviously he's not out of town, right? Those are steps you can do to prevent the artificial intelligence defeating you, you know, by saying oh, I'm you, oh, I'm in a jail somewhere. And another red flag, which I'm kind of surprised people I don't catch on, is they ask for send me a gift card. Well, what is a gift? You know you can't use a gift card to pay bail. That can't be right.
Speaker 1:If anybody ever asked you to send a gift card. You know it's fake. Yeah, I have our pastor at our church. He sends out emails and messages on social media regularly, probably once a month, saying, okay, it's happening again. And so you know, he has a big congregation, he has a big following and apparently I've not gotten any of these. But he apparently this is where they target him and they say, okay, this is somebody that has a big following, obviously there's people that really care about him and so they're trying to say you know they'll send out these messages saying, hey, I really need your help. And for a pastor, you know a pastor might be saying that. A pastor might be saying, hey, there's this family that needs help. Hey, we, there's this crisis, we need you to help donate some money. You know that might be something a pastor might say, but what they're doing is they're.
Speaker 2:You know it's all fake yeah, they, uh, they think of every scheme they can come up with and ai is greatly increasing their targeting ability and their ability to make these schemes realistic. And you know it's very scary.
Speaker 1:So, and I know this is tough, especially for older folks, because they feel like this is. You know it's hard because it's not the world that you grew up in, it's not the world that you have a comfort level with, and the reality is you just have to be skeptical, you know. You see, we always criticize I think we always criticize the younger generations. So now they talk about the millennials and we've got a millennial behind the camera here, that's being my producer today, and so but then we talk about now this new generation I think they call it Generation Z and we talk about them as being so jaded and just insincere. Well, they have to be. And, frankly, us older folks probably need to start being a little bit more jaded to say, ok, we can't trust everything that we see or hear, we have to be skeptical. And it's probably OK that the younger generation is skeptical, because there is so much fakeness out there that the younger generation is skeptical because there is so much fakeness out there.
Speaker 2:You know, you mentioned that the younger generation and, and they are more, uh, technically sophisticated, more skeptical, uh, skeptic. But there are cases of young people um entering the same kind of relationships minors and sex extortion is taking place. Oh, my God, and they're not only getting them for money, but there's reports where these folks not only want money, but they want them to brand themselves and carve initials and live stream it.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:So, and these are, these are people that have you know, min, that have grown up with the technology, so it's a frightening time. I've never, you know, we didn't have those types of crimes. We had horrendous crimes. But the industrialization of this, of these schemes, and the groups that are out here, the organized groups, you know we talk about red flags for loved ones to look for in. You know their families' behaviors, whether a child or an adult, and things to you know, like if your grandfather or your father starts saying you know, I'd like to invest in this Bitcoin.
Speaker 1:You know? Can you tell me about this?
Speaker 2:Or can you help me install this platform on my cell phone, this WhatsApp or Telegram, and those are keys. That why do you want that? Why do you need that? Why are you all of a sudden interested in that? Or you know, hey, I'd like to travel overseas. Or I have this online friend that she and I are. You know we're communicating. What about? Who is this person? Those are all red flags and you know banks are becoming more aware of withdrawals that are made and like why is this withdrawal being made? And they will contact family members and say do you know so-and-so's withdrawing this money and shipping it? Wire transfers and those types of things. So we all have to be vigilant that you know they are targeting the elderly and vulnerable and it's just a horrendous thing to be occurring.
Speaker 1:You know, I think that's a you know, really a very important point, and you know it is. There's just so much out there that, literally, even the most sophisticated could probably fall for some of these issues. So one of the things I wanted to talk to you about and I appreciate some of the red flags that you mentioned particularly. So just to go back for a second particularly the ones where an older person is asking a younger person to help install an app, that seems like so innocent, that seems like, okay, you know, grandpa, thank you. Finally, you're starting to, you know, stop some of this and be participating in this, and, frankly, it should be. Why, grandpa? What's the purpose of this? What are you trying to do? You know what's the background behind this, and so that's something that I don't think people would look at as a red flag.
Speaker 1:I see some of these other ones where I have this online friend that seems like that's an obvious red flag, or I have, you know, I want to travel overseas. Oh well, they would have never expressed that before. That probably is going to be subject to more questions. But I want to download WhatsApp? Ok, well, that I think most grandkids would be like, oh, great, great, I can. I can do that for you, I can help you and not even think of that. That could actually be an exploitation issue. So asking those questions are so important and you know you have such great insight onto this, it doesn't surprise me that you've gotten some awards in your career. So can you tell us a little bit about some of the awards that you got with regard to some of this?
Speaker 2:Yes, I got an award from the American Probation and Parole Association for my efforts in cybercrime, writing about cybercrime in corrections populations. And then the Federal Probation and Pretrial Officers Association. I got an award in the National Line Officer Award, as well as the Regional Officer for again, for my work in managing the risk of cyber offenders. And then I'm a member of the High Tech Crime Investigators Association and I was actually the international president as well and I was recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award from that group. So those are the three professional organizations in different genres from probation as well as the law enforcement aspect. They recognized that I brought something to the table and they found value in it.
Speaker 1:Well, congratulations. That doesn't surprise me at all, but it's just the short time we've been talking. I can tell that you're really passionate about this and you have some really great insight. Can you tell us what are some things that can be implemented to protect your accounts, to protect your household, to avoid some of these risks?
Speaker 2:Well, we talk about their system needs to be up-to-date. They need to have up-to-date software to date. They need to have um up-to-date software anti-virus, anti-malware. Um, that is going to stop a lot of the the uh, the viruses or the spam email. Um, I had to get out and that reminds me I had to get after my father. He kept going into the spam folder and he would see these messages and I'm like dad, the reason why it's a spam is because it's been flagged as bad.
Speaker 2:So just, you know, educating them about that. You know those are the hardware, software types of things that we all need to implement, and firewalls, and we talk about that in our book, step-by-step, going through that. Then it's discussing what the risks are. Before we forget, if they're on social media, making sure their social media account is tight, and my mean tight is they're not sharing private information to the world. They're only sharing with friends that they have established truly are friends and not a fake, locking down their privacy settings so they're not sharing too much information and just educating them about the elderly. You maybe want to ask hey, do you mind if I take a look at your bank statements and make sure nothing's amiss, because so often they'll click on something and they've signed up for a subscription that they didn't know they had. I know that happened with my father. He's paying for an antivirus program that he didn't even have and he was paying for it year after year.
Speaker 2:And when I took over and started looking, I'm like what is this? And you know I canceled it. So keeping track of that, as well as their you know their credit card statements, and just like, hey, I'd like to help you out, I know you're busy. We're dealing with the elderly. They have been independent all their lives and you've got to do it in a sensitive way and like look, I'm just helping you out.
Speaker 2:It's not because I think you can't handle your affairs Now. There will come a time, unfortunately in some cases, where they can't handle their affairs and you need to take more aggressive action or assertive action. I would say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's where we come in as far as making sure people have the right legal documents in place and ideally trying to avoid guardianship things like that. But you know, it's interesting what you say there. I had a client years ago and this actually was quite years ago, meaning that it was before some of the sophistication that was there and she had only one child and they had kind of a not great relationship growing up. But then the daughter finally said, okay, I think I need to step in here, and she started looking at her mom's bank statement and there was $1,500 every month taken out for different services that claimed that they were identity theft protection. So what was happening was people were calling and that was big in the news back then. Right, it still always is in the news for many, many years, this identity theft protection. And so she was seeing this. You know, this is a concern. She had some diminished capacity and so she'd get these calls and as soon as she agreed to sign up for one, then they probably sold her name and phone number to all the other scammers and between all of the scammers she was paying $1,500 a month for identity theft protection for people that were actually. You know, basically in some way stealing her identity. It was clearly not real identity theft protection, and that's what happens when we don't keep, you know, we're not watching. And she had enough money that it didn't. You know she wasn't not paying her bills, so nobody was it. Didn't, you know, raise those red flags that, hey, your heating bill's not getting paid.
Speaker 1:But finally the daughter had stepped, you know, forward and said, hey, you know, can I look at your bank statement? Can I just see what's on there? It's one of those things that's very difficult because we all know that there are kids that are bad kids, that are trying to take advantage of, trying to mooch off of mom and dad and sort of steal their money, and that's they're. They're just being greedy, but most of us are, most of the kids aren't, and so. But the good kids are nervous about making that, asking that question, you know saying, hey, do you mind if I look at your bank statement just so I see if I see any red flags, anything like that?
Speaker 1:I wrote an article years ago called why you Should Care About your Parents' Money, and it's counterintuitive because a lot of people think, oh, we got to let people have privacy. I don't want to interfere. I don't want to seem greedy, I don't want to seem like I'm the bad kid trying to make sure that they leave me in an inheritance. No, the reason why you should care about your parents' money is as we age, we have more vulnerabilities, we have more susceptibility to these types of scams, and so it's a good idea If you're a good kid. If you're a bad kid, don't look at your parents' bank statement. If you're a good kid and you have good intentions, you should be inquiring as your parents age and get older and become more vulnerable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it goes in open communication. You know you're not going to go out of the blue and just so, I need to see your bank statements. You're right, it's. You're going to have a relationship with them and, um, you know, keeping in contact with them and, uh, checking on their general welfare and that type of thing, um, and the being able to look at the bank statement doesn't seem unusual in that situation, when you're checking on them and engaging them and you know, uh, and just that engagement, like if you don't see their bank bank account statement, but they start raising those other red flags that I talked about. You know like, oh, I have an online friend that I'm talking with. You know those are like, okay, let's talk about that. Yeah, um, and you know those are like, okay, let's talk about that. Yeah, and you know it's, it's funny we talk about. You know we're talking about the elderly.
Speaker 2:But my son, he, he started getting hit with charges from DoorDash or one of the places deliver food, and it was just a small amount, like five, $10. And then it hit like $250. And I go where? Where did you go and buy all this food? And he had been hacked and they had taken his debit card and he wasn't catching on the little charges. And I'm like you got to. In this day and age, you got to check your bank statements Right and regularly, because those charges will sneak in and if you don't pay attention, everybody's got to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they'll start. And what's interesting about that is because I think a lot of us would imagine that somebody has access to the information. They're going to immediately hit it with a $5,000 charge or something. No, it's the $5 charge. They're going to test it and then they're going to test it again. They're going to test it and then they're going to test it again. They're going to test it again and they're going to wait until they feel comfortable before they hit that large charge, because they know that large charge is probably going to be reduced, but they don't expect you know that, so they're testing it. I've had that happen a number of times and with business accounts where you know I see it and I see, okay, there's a $5.13 charge here, three times for some online thing. I'm pretty sure none of us ordered that, and so you really have to be eternally vigilant on these kinds of things.
Speaker 1:Definitely, definitely Do you have any platforms or safety tools that you could give us ideas, or do you have any thoughts on some some some safety mechanisms that we should be considering using?
Speaker 2:Well, I think you know, as we get older, uh, we might consider a fraud alert on our credit cards, uh, on our accounts. That, uh, that's not as uh, I don't want to say severe, but it's not as restrictive as a credit freeze. But you know, when you get older, why do you need to establish? You know, why do you need to have open lines of credit or being able to go get credit all the time. Well, you know that's a good point.
Speaker 1:You mentioned a credit freeze. Why not freeze it? So I have at least I have two out of three credit bureaus frozen right now, because you know it's rare that I'm having somebody pull my credit. You know I have credit cards. I have credit already. If I'm going to have somebody pull my credit to buy a new car or to get a mortgage or something, I can easily change that. But in the meantime I don't need. You know, I'm not going to be opening credit store credit cards at every store that I open. You know that I go into and offers me a store credit card. So if I'm rarely opening new credit, why not do a credit freeze? Because you can always reverse it anytime you want to.
Speaker 2:That's correct.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think it's a good idea.
Speaker 2:Again, as I said it's, you know the mechanics of keeping your antivirus and your software up to date. And another thing that I would suggest is on your cell phone is set up a PIN so that somebody can't change your provider or the SIM card. Get another SIM card, because that's used for two-party authentication. You know your cell phone. You get a code on your phone that says okay. Then you use that to get in your bank account. There have been cases where people have switched the SIM card, put it in another phone and then they can get that code and still, you know, have access to your accounts. So protection is to make sure you have a PIN number with your cell phone provider that there can't be any changes to your account without that PIN being provided.
Speaker 1:That's a really good tip, because you wouldn't think about that. Most of the things where we have to reset our passwords or anything else, it's going to go to our phone and if they can, if they can copy our phone. So what I think? I want to be clear on what you're saying. I want to get some clarity here. It's not the pin that you put in to open your phone. It's the pin that you would have with your, your, your provider, that you can't make any changes to it without knowing that PIN. Is that what you're saying? That's correct. That's correct.
Speaker 1:So that's an important distinction, because initially, when you were saying that, I was like, oh yeah, I have a code that I have to put in to open my phone, that's not what would stop this. What would stop it and I have this also is that they can't. If you call Verizon, which is my provider, they will not make changes unless they know my PIN as to what it was required to make changes, and that's the PIN that would solve that problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that stops the SIM duplication that can be used to get another SIM card and then they'll get your text messages and calls as if it was your phone and that stops. That's really important.
Speaker 1:So I have a couple more questions and I appreciate your time. I'm not going to take up too much more of your time. I appreciate the work that you do. Can you give us an idea of how families that have someone that they're caring for so let's say it's a senior with diminished capacity or some memory issues, so they're the family of that person what steps would you recommend that they take to make sure that that senior, that person with the diminished capacity, isn't taken advantage of?
Speaker 2:Well, you know we talk about my folks were in assisted living and the assisted living had Wi-Fi. So if they're living in that situation, whatever devices they have, you have to make sure that those devices are safe to operate in that environment. Same thing is my father had a cell phone. You have to make sure the cell phone has those same safeguards and that he can still get text messages. And I know there's cases of individuals in assisted living who are getting text messages and developing these relationships and are not relationships but being scanned because they're still getting the messages. So, um, it's an involvement.
Speaker 2:You know, if they're at that situation, um, I eventually had to. I had power of attorney over there, you know I was able to pay their bills and whatnot, but I actually needed to get guardianship at one point because they had to sell them, sell their house to so that, sell their house so that they would continue to be able to pay for their care, as their savings and whatnot was diminished. So it's tough. I mean I'm lucky I've got my sister who helps out, but it's a tough thing.
Speaker 1:You're actually taking over their finances and making sure things are properly done, and you know. So there's four of us that were working here and giving similar advice and we all were pretty reluctant to talk to our parents. It's like, ok, we can give that advice to others, that you got to step in and kind of give advice to your parents and sometimes, honestly, you know, be a little bit more direct and really give them, you know, strong direction. Give them, you know, strong direction. Even though the four of us were comfortable giving that with other families, it was very difficult when it was our parents that we had to step in. So I realized that we can give that advice and how difficult it is to sort of parent your parents. That that's that. That can be very difficult.
Speaker 1:I did want to mention one thing. You mentioned having to get guardianship and that often and that often is the necessity For anybody listening I would recommend you give us a call if you have to sell the house or something like that, where somebody tells you that you can't do it without getting guardianship. Call us first, because often we can come up with lesser inclusive options that doesn't involve having to involve the government or the court process Now, not always so often, you know. There are times where we have to go in and get guardianship or in Michigan we call it conservatorship for assets but I always recommend you call us first if you've been given that advice and, of course, that's something we could help you with too. If you have to go into court, we have court attorneys too, but we're always looking for more ways to keep it out of the government process, to keep it out of the courts and making sure the family can make the family decisions. So make sure that you're aware of that.
Speaker 1:I want to really thank Art Boker and all of the work that he does. His website is thecybersafetyguyscom. I recommend that you check it out. This has been a fascinating and really interesting interview. Any final thoughts or resources that you want to leave our audience before we finish up here today, art?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I would like to kind of follow up with, you know, those discussions with the elder, elderly, parents or loved one. It's better to do that, those discussions before their capacity gets, so that it it will not, that it won't mean anything. My father was adamant about not going into an assisted living and, um, uh, I didn't have, I didn't. One thing about COVID is, he had to move in there to be with my mom and uh, otherwise, I, uh it was going to be too tough. But you need to have those discussions way before uh becomes an issue that they don't have the capacity anymore to make those to make those decisions to help you.
Speaker 1:I agree with you entirely, Art. That's so important. So, you know, we do a lot of education. We do a lot of uh, you know this, these events and these podcasts and things like that, and then we're always talking about planning ahead, pre-planning, but we also acknowledge that the majority we have a lot of great people that plan ahead, that try to put these things in place ahead of time, and that's so much better.
Speaker 1:It'd be better for you, much more likely to get the results that you want. It's so much easier for the family if they know what you want. We've put in options that are going to make that much more feasible to accomplish what you want. The reality, though, is a good percentage of people are only going to call an attorney or, you know, reach out to us in a crisis, and we can help those too. Of course, we would rather have had GP prepared for this, but there was always. You know, if you have, if mom and dad haven't prepared, we can always still help you in a crisis. So, Art, thank you so much. This has been great information.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you giving me this opportunity to talk about this important topic and have me back anytime.
Speaker 1:It is a very important topic and if you enjoyed this podcast and you want to make sure that you get access to our future ones, you can subscribe to our podcast Advice From your Advocates at any of the places that you listen to podcasts, or you can go to YouTube, or you can go to our website at manorlawgroupcom. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you next time. Bye, thanks for listening. To learn more, visit manorlawgroupcom.
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