Why do we accept that older adults are easy targets for scammers?

Thanks again for landing on my website, i’m happy you’re here - i’m a man on a mission, and I hope you’ll take a moment to see what i’m trying to achieve, and maybe even join me in getting there.

As a much younger man, I worked in a call centre selling a newfangled technology called broadband (It’ll never catch on). We got commission for every sale, and the work was easy - customers called in, wanted to buy broadband, and we were more than satisfied ringing it through the tills.

One day, I was asked to join a crack team of the best salespeople in the company to start making outbound calls - the aim was simple - could we beat our outsourced call centres abroad? returning these jobs to the UK.

The hours were long, and the work, awful. No-one enjoys getting cold calls - I can tell you that for a fact. But only one thing was worse than bothering busy people - hearing salespeople capitalise on vulnerable older adults. I reported countless cases i’d seen, but always in vain. We were winning the competition. “So what if they don’t have any devices, they might have guests who want it…” I left on principle, and later heard they won (great…)

I went to university as a mature student (only a few years after my peers mind you). I studied Psychology. I needed to know what made people tick. but I wanted to be a force for good, not another wolf waiting for an easy meal. After that degree, I went on to do a masters in Psychology and eventually a PhD.

My PhD was titled A Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Cyber-Security Vulnerability in the Baby Boomer Population - a topic that most young people find very boring - but one that deeply resonates with those who have been victims of scams. You’d be amazed how many there are.

You might not know, but over 80% of all cyber-attacks start with the human - why bother hacking computers, when hacking the human is so much easier. This is only going to get worse as AI booms and attacks become more sophisticated. The days of badly worded emails giving away scams are gone. Attacks will be vicious, tailored, and incessant.

If any of this is resonating with you, if you are as disgusted by this as I am, I implore you to explore this site further - follow along on my social media sites (below) and let’s start to do something about this.