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Elder fraud is exploding: Your data is making it worse
ChatGPT
I’ve got bad news: Today’s online scammers know everything about you. They’re scraping your info and everyone else’s from the web and buying the rest from data brokers and people-search sites.
📈 The stats are scary
Folks age 60-plus are the biggest target. Almost 72% of scams start with personal data grabbed online. Data brokers vacuum up your info like phone numbers, emails, past addresses, income, favorite takeout spots and then auction it off like eBay for creepers.
With this data, they use personalized weapons.
🎯 Criminals know who to target
Study this list. Here’s what these attacks look like:
- AI phone calls that sound like your grandkids.
- Medicare fraud quoting your last doctor visit.
- Calls from “your bank” that know your address.
- Investment traps tailored to your retirement income.
- Romance scams where your “lover” has the same interests.
Live in a state with higher retirement incomes?
You’re in the bull’s-eye. Texas seniors lost an average of $51,700 per complaint. My state, Arizona, had the highest elder fraud rate per capita (3.5 cases for every 1,000 seniors). Yikes.
🛡️ How to fight back
1. Freeze your credit:
Even if you’re not worried about identity theft, a credit freeze keeps crooks from opening accounts in your name.
2. Use call filtering apps:
Try tools like Hiya, Nomorobo or your carrier’s spam call protection. And never answer unknown numbers, voicemail is your friend.
🕳️ Fake links, real damage: Watch out. Cyber creeps are shoving malware-laced links into cloned Google Calendar invites and Meet links. Fix? Turn on “Known Senders” in Calendar and trust no “tech support” that sounds like it’s from a gas station payphone.
🚨 Fake crypto apps will make you cry: Again, this happened. Over 20 were found posing as popular wallets like SushiSwap, PancakeSwap and more. They asked folks to enter their 12-word mnemonic phrase, which could give hackers full access to their crypto. PSA: App icons can be deceiving; make sure the dev is verified and always double-check those reviews.
📉 Pocket, zipped: Mozilla’s Pocket app — yes, the “save it for later” one — is shutting down July 8. Mozilla reasoned it needs to focus on Firefox, of all things. Data vanishes in October. If you’ve got a decade of unread articles, now’s your moment. Or just accept you’ll never finish that 2016 “Rise and Fall of Vine” op-ed.
🚨 Cyberattack hits major food supplier: Might want to stock up on your favorites now. United Natural Foods says hackers got into their systems, so they’ve shut down parts of the network. This means delays with order fulfillment and distribution. FYI: They supply products to over 30,000 stores, including Whole Foods. This one could cause some serious ripple effects.
💸 $742 million fortune lost: After 12 years, the guy who tossed a hard drive with 8,000 Bitcoin has to give up the search. It’s buried in a landfill in Wales, but officials won’t allow a dig because of environmental risks. And to top it off? A judge says it likely didn’t survive anyway. At least his story’s getting a documentary.
Floppy air control: Terrifying fun fact, U.S. air traffic control still partially runs on actual floppy disks and Windows 95. And yep, Newark’s had three major outages in five weeks. The FAA wants a $10B-ish tech glow-up, but politics and duct tape might kill the plan before takeoff. If Clippy pops up mid-landing, we’re all in God’s hands.
📱 Job text scam-a-palooza: Scammers are texting people fake job offers (i.e., Target hiring you to click buttons for $200/hr), and folks are falling for it (paywall link). Losses topped $470 million last year. AI makes these scams dangerously believable, and Gen Z is out here click-click-clicking their way into identity theft.
📦 Package delayed scam: This one is spreading fast. You place an order after seeing a tempting ad, but the package never shows. Then comes the excuse: delays due to tariffs or customs. Next thing you know, they’re asking for extra fees after checkout.
TSA’s planning touchless pat-downs: Yep, they’re working on VR tech that lets agents “feel” you without any actual contact. How? Sensors scan your body shape, then send the data to haptic gloves, creating a virtual version of your contours. And don’t you know all that is going into some database? Speaking of … Did you know that the TSA likes to hire dentists as supervisors? They are already experts in performing cavity searches.
🚨 AT&T data leak: Hackers just exposed 86 million customer records, including names, phone numbers, emails and addresses. Worse? Nearly 44 million Social Security numbers were leaked in plain text. That’s prime info for scammers and identity theft. PSA: Stay alert for phishing attempts and keep a close eye on your accounts, folks.
Lot cop unleashed: Walmart’s testing a security robot in its parking lots. It has wheels, cameras and apparently a dude behind the mic, whispering “Yo, what you say?” to shoppers. Is it surveillance? Art? Cyberpunk cosplay? Either way, the vibes are dystopian. Next up: R2-D2 with a gun.
The pirate said, “Can I buy an I?”: Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune are hitting streaming for the first time, just one day after episodes air. Hulu and Peacock snagged multiyear deals for new and old episodes. Sony and CBS are still in a legal slap fight about it, but the real winner here is your Roku.
🪥 No floss can fix stupid: A top U.S. dental marketing firm accidentally exposed 8.8 million appointment records and 2.7 million patient profiles online: names, emails, birth dates, billing info, all just sitting in the open. Hackers didn’t even have to lift a finger. Be sure to keep an eye on your Explanation of Benefit records.
🧑💻 Online shopping scam: A dad thought he scored a 20TB hard drive for $51 (these are normally around $300) from a flaky site called “Chicntech.” Spoiler: It didn’t work. His son cracked it open and found glued-in metal weights and a chip faking the storage size.
👁️ Laser eyes, activated: Chinese scientists made a laser that reads text ⅛ of an inch from 0.85 miles away. Originally for studying stars, it now works on your grocery list from the next neighborhood over. Add shape-recognition AI, and yes, it’s totally spying tech. Meanwhile, you’re looking for your glasses when they’re on your head.
🍪 93.7 billion cookies for sale: And nope, not the Girl Scouts kind. Hackers are selling browser cookies on the dark web, so they can access your accounts with no login needed. How’d they get them? Infostealer malware from shady downloads. Be careful what you click.
Microsoft alert: Starting in June, you won’t be able to save new passwords in their Authenticator app. By July, it’ll stop autofilling passwords and delete saved payment info. Come August, all stored passwords will be wiped. Why? Microsoft’s moving password management to the Edge browser. I’m still not making the switch.
Too good to be true: Hackers are tricking people into downloading “premium AI tools” that are actually malware. Some freeze your PC. Others steal logins. One claims it’s helping humanitarian causes. Classic hacker gaslight. If an AI app offers unicorn features for free, it’s probably there to eat your bank account.