Under their spell

five things you need to do to protect your elders (and yourself!) from the most widespread crime in America--cyber fraud

I just recorded an episode for my Slate podcast, How To! that I had to share with the Examined Family community. It is on cyber fraud, an exponentially exploding crime that so many of us are being impacted by, including our elders. Take a listen:

I’ve heard anecdotes of cyber fraud, obviously, but I had no clue what a massive scale this crime has become—by some estimates, as much as $150 billion a year!

But never fear, there are things we can do to protect our loved ones and ourselves, and turn the tide!

The first thing you can do is simply initiate the conversation about cyber fraud with the people you love, neighbors, friends, anyone in your community that you think could be helped by the information (which is basically everyone, by the way). Come from a place of curiosity and open-ended questions; too many elders feel like they are being scolded or shamed when this topic comes up. Don’t assume that they don’t have some information of their own to share.

Here are the other four things you should do as soon as possible…

1. Start the conversations (sending along this post is a great first step).