It is not that Seniors are all senile or stupid. It is not that they are all so behind the time they can’t catch up.
It is simply that they don’t expect the kind of attacks that are prevalent today.
Let us be honest; the Internet came into America and other First World Countries around 1990. It didn’t reach Jamaica until 1995.
The person born in 1940, 1950, perhaps even 1960, would be 76, 66 and 56 respectively. The first lived fifty years, if born in the first world, without anything resembling the Internet. The others, forty and Thirty years, respectively.
The Internet, however, did not really take off until about 2000. That is only 16 years ago. Before then, hard copy was hard copy.
Newspapers, letters, phone calls. Now, online news, email and Skype.
So those who are over 50 lived most of their lives in the hard copy world.
Sure there were always scams. The infamous Ponzi goes way back to the 1920s. But the online scams are successful because those who are caught in them ‘don’t know what they don’t know.’
For example, in Jamaica many data entry centres are located. These centres do the billing for particular American entities, ie. Reader’s Digest.
The Jamaican Data Centre gets the name, address and phone number of the subscriber.
The list of subscribers was copied and sold at $2,500 per page to a scammer.
The page had 25 names on it.
The scammer would buy five cheap cell phones hire five cheap girls and give each five names. Each girl would call one of the names announcing; “You Won the Jamaican Lottery!”
The victim never said; “&*&^ I didn’t enter no lottery!” and hang up. The victim believed because who expected a 4th World country like Jamaica to have first rate scammers?
All the victim had to do was send some sum, usually around $7,500 U.S. dollars to a particular address via Western Union to pay the fees on the winnings.
So a lot of people did it.
They did it because it never occurred to them that:
1) The bills they received were printed in Jamaica.
2) That their information was gotten from the bills they paid in America
3) That anyone would be so bold as to use Western Union
4) That a Jamaican could trick them.
A thirty year old probably doesn’t have a subscription to Reader’s Digest, would not believe he won a contest he didn’t enter, and would not send any money via Western Union or other method without some public verification.
A thirty year old might call a Jamaica consulate or send an email to verify.
A seventy year old would not. Would not imagine he or she was being scammed.
A seventy year old, getting on the Internet in 2005 might see a pop up; “You Won!” and click on it. That is because s/he does not know that these pop ups are just commercials. Advertisements.
A sixty year old might not realise that email advising of an inheritance is a scam.
This is simply because of exposure. Of not living in a world of tweets, facebook, and the ability to get almost any address via a simple search site.
To repeat, many senior do not know what they don’t know; so can be targeted.
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This is so true, if we look back in the days all the things we have now are all ancient to most seniors as you call them. There is just too much going on in the world of technology that would take them a lot of time to grasp the happenings around them. So even when teaching them it takes a lot of time and energy to convince them that such a method would be much faster as compared to what they were used to from before. But as the days and years go by, they are quickly getting used to the technology that has been set out for them
It is hard to believe that people will do such evil things on the Internet. One just has to protect themselves. For example, not using a real name, not using a real address can help.
There are so many bad elements that target the old folks. That's the reason why we need to supervise them. Modernization had changed the morality of some people. They tend to scam old folks without neglecting a good conscience.
You can't supervise them all the time... just have to make them aware that they didn't win any contest and that they shouldn't use their real name or address when they can help it.
Seniors are easy prey. But woe to the person who takes advantage of them. One day they be a senior too, if they live. What goes around comes back around.
The thing is people have to be kept on alert that anything that can be scammed will be. Just today an older woman sent me an email which my malware flags. I asked her if she sent me an email. She says yes. I told her that it has malware and she hasn't answered. She has no idea what she is doing.