About 18 months ago, Maria Wu received a call that left her shaken. Ms. Wu’s mother-in-law, who is in her 70s, had been on the receiving end of a so-called “grandparent scam” – a call from an anonymous number, with a voice that sounded like her son’s claiming to need a large sum of cash for an emergency.
Luckily, Ms. Wu’s older relative was skeptical. She called her son and then, after confirming the whole thing had been a fake, the police. Still, the incident was unsettling enough to prompt Ms. Wu’s family to discuss how to best protect their loved ones from the seemingly endless list of scams targeting seniors by text, phone and online.
It’s been a challenge. “It’s hard to give them all of the different scenarios of what to look out for,” said the 42-year-old Ms. Wu, who lives in Calgary. With her own parents, who are both in their late 70s, she’s tried to address the broad spectrum of disinformation online, including fake news, hoaxes and outright fraud.
“I can see them starting to get overwhelmed, and I don’t want to scare them altogether.”
The challenge of helping older loved ones navigate the online world safely can become a significant source of stress and anxiety − on all sides. For older generations, who often don’t have the same level of experience with new technologies, being lectured by younger relatives or adult children may feel, at best, patronizing, and at worst, controlling. For younger generations, providing that support to older relatives can be a daunting – oftentimes thankless – task.
But with the variety and sophistication of scams and hoaxes increasing, so too is the urgency to have such conversations.
Fraud is the No. 1 type of crime committed against seniors in this country. Last year alone, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre received more than 21,000 reports of online fraud, totalling more than $470-million in losses. About 27 per cent of that dollar figure came from victims older than 60.
Because of this, Vanessa Iafolla, an anti-fraud consultant in Halifax, encourages families to have open and direct discussions with older relatives about their online activities.
“You have to try to step out of that parent-child relationship, not because you don’t respect your parents as your parents,” she said, “but because you need to see your parents as people who are susceptible to scams, like every other human being on the planet.”
Through these conversations with her parents, Ms. Wu said she’s seen her relationship with them slowly morph.
“It’s been a transition for us, changing from that parent-child dynamic,” she said. “They still have authority of their own life. But we just have more knowledge in this field.”
In the case of Jade, a 38-year-old Vancouver woman, that transition with her own mother has not gone smoothly. (The Globe is only using her first name to protect the privacy of her mother.)
Jade said her mother regularly parrots YouTube conspiracy theories and shares blatantly fake and AI-generated headlines online. (Many studies have shown that older adults are especially susceptible to fake news online. One study after the 2016 U.S. election, for instance, found that during the campaign, Facebook users older than 65 were seven times more likely to share links to fake news sites.)
Trying to address the issue has led to conflict.
“It takes a lot of energy to figure out how to have these conversations, and there’s a lot of emotional stress on both sides. She feels like she’s being attacked, or that I’m telling her she’s dumb,” she said.
At some point, parents “change from becoming the authority figures in our lives, to us becoming authority figures,” she added. “And they both want that and resent it.”
Even when the older cohorts know they need assistance, asking for help can be a challenge.
Elvira Virelli, a retired teacher in her 60s, used to rely heavily on a tech-savvy younger couple who lived next door for online help. But they recently moved. “That was a big loss,” she said.
She navigates the online world increasingly nervously, ever-aware of the many scams. It’s why she avoids banking or shopping online.
Janice Towler, who also lives in Toronto, said she considers herself reasonably tech-savvy – at least for an 83-year-old. She uses an iPad to surf the web and do her online banking, and a black, bedazzled iPhone to e-mail and chat with friends.
Still, she relies on her son more than she’d like. “I don’t like to bother him,” Ms. Towler said. He’s always willing to help, but he doesn’t always have the time to walk her through things slowly.
She said she understands why some of her peers struggle with accepting help. “It’s hard to understand some of the technology. It’s just so new. They’ve felt in control, and now they’re at a disadvantage. So there’s probably some embarrassment too.”
Ms. Iafolla – who works with families who have been victimized by cyberfraud – acknowledged these conversations can be difficult. But, she said, they’re easier than having to pick up the pieces after a scam.
When explaining risks to older adults, “be on their team, and be on their side,” she said, adding that families should treat elderly loved ones with the same respect and curiosity they would give a friend or colleague.
Instead of going through the exhaustive list of hoaxes out there, it’s more helpful to focus on the traits most commonly used by scammers, she said. “Ask questions like, what knowledge do I have about this person? Is this person engaged in some kind of pressure tactic? Is this too good to be true?’”
Another potential solution is to bring in a neutral third-party.
At Cyber-Seniors, high-school students act as volunteer mentors, helping older members of the community navigate the online world.
“It’s a lot easier to have patience with someone you don’t really know,” said Macaulee Cassaday, the non-profit’s program manager.
And at a west Toronto condo tower earlier this month, a group of about a dozen seniors gathered for a technology workshop run by Janice Greenberg, a 71-year-old volunteer instructor with Connected Canadians, a charity with a similar mission.
Through Connected Canadians, Ms. Greenberg gives workshops to seniors on everything from ordering groceries online to recognizing phishing attempts.
“One advantage I have is that I’m sort of close to their age, so there’s a little bit of a connection,” she said.
For instance, when teaching about fake news, she’ll use the analogy of newspapers versus tabloids at the grocery store checkout.
Among the participants at Ms. Greenberg’s workshop were Ms. Virelli and Ms. Towler. But it’s not just the older generations who have something to learn about the online world, Ms. Virelli said. She pointed to the way many younger people are glued to their phones.
“Younger people might have a certain dependence that older people might not have,” she said. “It’s not all positive one way and all negative the other.”
