10 Ways to Scam-Proof Your Parents' Technology

The numbers are brutal and getting worse. In 2025, Americans over 60 filed more than 200,000 fraud complaints with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, reporting $7.7 billion in losses — up roughly 60% in a single year, the highest of any age group. More than 12,000 seniors lost over $100,000 each.

And here's the detail that should reframe how your family thinks about it: tech-support scams were the second-costliest category, taking over $1 billion from people 60+. The fake virus popup. The "Microsoft calling" phone call. The "refund" that needs remote access to your bank account first.

Scammers aren't exploiting your parents' gullibility. They're exploiting the absence of anyone else to ask. Every defense below is really one defense in different forms: making sure the scammer is never the most available helper in the room.

1. Give them one number to call — and put it on the fridge

The single highest-leverage move. When Dad doesn't know who to call about a scary popup, he calls the number on the popup. Print a card: "Something weird on a screen? Call this first." Whether it's you, a sibling rotation, or a dedicated support line, the rule is the same: suspicious → phone a human you trust → touch nothing.

2. Kill the remote-access apps

If your parent doesn't do video calls with a real technician, remove AnyDesk, TeamViewer, and friends — and set a family rule that no one legitimate will ever ask them to install one. Remote access is the payload of nearly every tech-support scam: the "helper" who wants to drive the computer is the thief.

3. Gift cards are the tell

Say it until it's a reflex: no real business, government agency, or grandchild collects payment in gift cards. The IC3 data shows this pattern in every top scam category. If anyone asks for gift cards, the conversation is over.

4. Slow the money down

Ask their bank about transaction alerts, daily transfer limits, and a trusted-contact designation. Many banks will flag or delay unusual wires for senior accounts on request. Scams need speed; friction is your friend.

5. Freeze credit at all three bureaus

Free, permanent until unfrozen, and it converts a stolen SSN from a catastrophe into an inconvenience. Do it once with your parent at the kitchen table — twenty minutes, three websites.

6. Fix the recovery chains before a scammer does

That 1997 AOL address that recovers the bank login? A scammer who takes it over owns everything downstream. Map where password resets actually go, update dead phone numbers, and turn on two-factor wherever it exists. (The average person has 168 passwords — your parent's tangle is older and deeper.)

7. Make the phone screen calls

Enable the carrier's spam-call filtering and the phone's silence-unknown-callers mode, with the family whitelisted. Most scam calls die unanswered — the ones that get through meet rule #1.

8. Rehearse the two scripts

Not a lecture — a rehearsal, like a fire drill. Script one: popup says virus → close the browser, call the number on the fridge. Script two: caller says "your grandson is in jail" → hang up, call the grandson. Practiced responses beat in-the-moment judgment, at every age.

9. Know what's actually installed in the house

You can't spot the fake "we're calling about your Ring account" call if nobody's sure whether the house has a Ring account. Keep a family-visible inventory of every device, app, and account in the home — which is also what lets a real helper fix things fast, so the fake helpers never get their opening.

10. Make every fix leave a record the family can see

The pattern behind repeat victimization is silence: seniors often don't mention the weird call or the $200 "fee" because they're embarrassed. Flip the default. When help happens in the open — every support call, fix, and "was this real?" question logged where the family sees it — the shame disappears and the second scam attempt gets caught by four people instead of zero.

Their tech. Your peace of mind.

Numbers 1, 9, and 10 are the reason we built LovedOne the way we did: a support line seniors can actually call (patient, unhurried, and incapable of asking for a gift card), a Technology ledger of everything in the house, and a family inbox where every support call lands as a summary — with a loud ⚠️ flag the moment anything smells like a scam.

The scammer's whole business model is being the easiest person to ask. Be easier.

LovedOne is part of Sandwich — tech support for the people you love.