Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Next up, as part of our ongoing coverage of cybersecurity and digital safety in your own lives, we talked to a conversation about how to protect your aging relatives in particular today from falling for scams, especially as those scams get more sophisticated and as the scammers have learned that people over, say, around 70 seem to be particularly susceptible as prey. We're going to invite your phone calls for you to call out any scams that you, as a senior or seniors you know, have been approached with in recent times. We're going to ask advice from our guest, Paulette Perhach, a freelance writer whose recent piece in the New York Times is How to Prevent Aging Parents and Relatives from Making Financial Mistakes. Paulette, thanks for coming on for this. Welcome to WNYC.

Paulette Perhach: Thank you for having me, and for covering this really important topic.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, do you have an aging parent or other loved one who recently fell for a scam? 212-433-WNYC. Say what it is so others know that those predators are out there. 212-433-9692. Maybe you or someone you know have almost fallen for a scam targeted at seniors until you realize, wait a second. Something doesn't seem right here. 212-433-WNYC. Tell us your stories.

Call out these particular scams as a matter of helping people enhance their cybersecurity and that of their loved ones, especially older loved ones, in this case. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. I'll start with one in particular, Paulette, that we heard about recently. We heard from someone who fell for an AI-generated video supposedly of Anderson Cooper selling a product that could supposedly prevent or reverse the effects of Alzheimer's.

Paulette Perhach: Wow.

Brian Lehrer: Have you heard of that one? With the rise of AI and deep fake videos, does that one represent something?

Paulette Perhach: That one, I believe, is probably so new that we haven't seen it in reports. I looked specifically at the 2024 report from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, which pulls out elder scams as a particular subset that they study. I think what we're looking at there is this idea of transfer trust. If Anderson Cooper says it, then it must be true. The problem now is that AI is interrupting our ability to trust that we really are hearing it from a particular person.

Brian Lehrer: You wrote about a woman whose mother came to her with a common check fraud scam. What was that one?

Paulette Perhach: Essentially, she came to her with a check. The check looked legitimate. She said she had to deposit it and then send a money order for a lower amount to a third party. This is called a check fraud scam. Essentially, if you see anything that is just too good to be true, it's a really good idea to say, "Let me pause here and say, is this really true?" That one has definitely been on the rise as well.

Brian Lehrer: Jim in Milburn has one. Jim, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Jim: Hi. I got a text two days ago, and it purported to be a traffic violation that I owed money for, and a very helpful QR code to scan for it. The giveaway, if you looked at it carefully, was that it was in the courtroom of Judge John Smith. I don't think if I was able to appoint a judge, I would appoint John Smith. It's too generic.

Brian Lehrer: Jim, thank you very much. All right, good one to know with QR codes in addition to traditional links and phone numbers to call now. Jay and Yonkers here on WNYC. Hi, Jay.

Jay: Hi there. I have received many calls from a fictitious grandson who claims he was in an auto accident and he'd been in the hospital with stitches and a broken nose, and to get out of jail before his hearing, a bond has to be placed. I'm given a phone number and the name of a lawyer named Mr. Green. It seems like in these repeated calls, this guy Green is always the lawyer. I do know of several people who, elderly folks, have actually been financial victims of such calls. People should be very, very careful when their grandchild calls them.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Jay. My mother, not that long ago, told me about getting one of those calls, Paulette, and she had a method, or at least advice for others to prevent being fooled. Somebody calls and says, "It's your grandson, I'm in trouble." You say, "Joey, is that you?" Then the scammer can say, "Yes, it's Joey." Instead, you should say, "Oh, you're my grandson. What's your name?"

Paulette Perhach: One of the challenges with AI now is that they will actually take their voice and likeness, so you could get a video call-

Brian Lehrer: Wow. No kidding.

Paulette Perhach: -from the phone number of your grandson that looks and sounds like your grandson. I would encourage people to go a step further and to have a private family code where you can ask if your grandson, granddaughter, anyone in your family calls and says, "I need money. I just had an accident." You are in such a panicked mode, and when you're in that hot state, you are not thinking with your brain in the same way as you would be if you were in a cool state, if you weren't feeling stress.

It's really important to just know this elder fraud has seen a tenfold increase since 2018, which may be the effect of increased reporting, but either way, it is skyrocketing. The top ones to look out for, the most common are phishing and spoofing, tech support, extortion, and then personal data breach. Those are the top four to look out for.

Brian Lehrer: What are the top four defenses?

Paulette Perhach: I think the top four defenses are pausing is always a great idea. Thinking about not only if you're giving your money, but if you're giving anything of value, which includes your private data. If anyone is asking you a question about your private data, really think about, "Is this someone that I contacted? Did I contact them from a trusted site?" I actually almost fell for a scam while reporting this story because I did a Google search for United Airlines phone number, and I found a helpful website that said it's basically like how to get a human at any place.

I never called United. It was a place that purported to get you to a human at certain companies, but it was them. It is very difficult. You want to make sure you're always looking at the right website. Look at where emails come from. I got an email recently that was for looking for an apartment, and it said zillow@gmail.com. Clearly, it was not from Zillow. If someone claims that your device is infected or compromised and pressures you to accept any kind of remote access, I think pausing is always one of your best tools, and then getting a second opinion.

Brian Lehrer: Diane in Boonton, you're on WNYC. Hi, Diane.

Diane: Hey. I've been getting several this last week from Bank of America, saying that call this number. I called the number. There was a representative there saying, "There's been unusual activity on your bank account. They've been using your ATM, but with the expiration dates. Call the vendor, and in this case, also call Amazon." I did call Amazon, and they said, "They've definitely got a wrong number there for your expiration code, which is interesting. What's the punchline here? I called my representative at Bank of America, and she said, "Do not do anything more. Nothing more. This is a scam." That's my story.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. those kinds of things. One piece of that, the search for the customer phone number. How do I get a human on the phone at such and such a company? You may wind up on a website that's not giving you the real customer service number, but one that's going to take you to a scam site.

Paulette Perhach: One helpful resource is that AARP has a fraud watch network helpline, and that is available both for elders to call directly or for family members who have a question about is this legitimate? There are volunteers that are available for people to use as a resource.

Brian Lehrer: That caller said that the texts were allegedly from Bank of America. Another caller, who we're not going to have time for, says they got something like that from Chase. They're using bank names as one of the ways in. In our last minute, and listeners were going to come back and do versions of this again and again and again, are there meaningful steps the government is taking to get ahead of this, if the scam industry has ballooned to the extent that you say since 2018?

Paulette Perhach: I really covered in the article the personal steps that people can take. I didn't do deep research on the government. I think people should really rely on themselves and their families to stay ahead of this and to really educate themselves. thinking about having open, honest conversations about money in your family is very important. Helping each other to really be able to talk about this is also really important.

Brian Lehrer: Paulette Perhach's New York Times article is How to Prevent Aging Parents and Relatives from Making Financial Mistakes. Thank you so much for enlightening us this much.

Paulette Perhach: Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: That's The Brian Lehrer Show for today, produced by Lisa Allison, Mary Croke, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum, with help today from Sasha, Linda, and Cohen. Our interns this spring are Arlo Bivens and Jack Walker. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen produces our daily Politics podcast, and Megan Ryan is the head of Live Radio. Shayna Sengstock and Milton Ruiz at the audio controls. Stay tuned for Alison.

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