Can this be true? September 5, 2016
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
From a piece on Slate.com on how ‘senior citizens’ can potentially be prey to online con artists.
But it also unlocks a whole new world of vulnerability. According to the FBI, seniors are specifically targeted online because they “are most likely to have a ‘nest egg,’ to own their home, and/or to have excellent credit—all of which make them attractive to con artists.” Furthermore, the FBI says, “ People who grew up in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s were generally raised to be polite and trusting. Con artists exploit these traits, knowing that it is difficult or impossible for these individuals to say ‘no’ or just hang up the telephone.” Con artists view the senior population as uniquely vulnerable, and they have come up with creative ways to try and exploit those vulnerabilities.
I’m a bit younger that that and thankfully I was raised to be polite and paranoid. It has its advantages.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
On the paranoia thing; heard an interview last night with someone who’s written a book called ‘weapons of math destruction’ about algorithms, and how they destroy our lives – one scary thing; *apparently* the likes of health insurers can scope out your search history and, say for example, they see you’ve been googling ‘bowel cancer’ recently, tailor their response accordingly. Similarly, the time it takes a phone company/ utility etc to answer may be based on your address/ other stuff they know about you – depends how important they think you are…
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Thankfully, our most isolated and vulnerable elderly population in rural parts are largely protected from such scams by the complete lack of broadband connectivity. 🙂
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We receive 5 to 15 robo- and other phone-calls, and 80 to 100 solicitation eMails per day. All are predators, but it seems that only a few target us because of our ages.
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Fair point. It’s not the robo calls that irritate me, I get next to none, but the calls from Vodafone trying to “improve” my mobile plan.
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