“I’ve gotten a few calls about funeral insurance. That puts me off a little bit,” says McCarroll. “I have cancer, but you don’t have to rub it in.”
We live in an age of constant scams. The technology and techniques behind them have improved, while attempts to take them down have largely stalled. For the millions of people in the United States facing scam attempts like McCarroll, there doesn’t seem to be any significant relief in sight.
For the most part, we think of scam calls and texts in terms of their financial costs to the people who fall for them. Reported consumers $5.8 billion in fraud to the Federal Trade Commission last year, a 70 percent increase from 2020. Falling for or becoming involved in a scam can lead to an increase in attempts. According to RoboKiller, an app for screening robocalls on phones, the average smartphone owner in the United States will receive approximately 42 spam text messages and 28 spam calls per month. Once a number or email address spreads to more spammers’ databases, it can be bought and sold by companies involved in the burgeoning scam industry.
Someone could come across any or all of these scams in a week: A text message from UPS with a link promising delivery. A pre-recorded phone call about a car warranty or bank issue. Emails that appear to be from Amazon or Apple customer service asking you to sign in to your account. Shady responds on Facebook Marketplace for a chair that she listed. Maybe a wrong number message on WhatsApp from a chatty stranger.
Beyond the financial repercussions, there’s a high emotional cost to people who don’t lose a dollar, mental health experts say. Constant scam attempts can increase stress levels and strain relationships. Its negative impact on mental health is made even worse when scammers target people based on perceived weaknesses, such as advanced age, loneliness, or, in McCarroll’s case, chronic illness. That anxiety can rub off on worried family members, they say.
Irene Kenyon’s family was in a good position to avoid scams. She is director of risk intelligence at risk assessment company FiveBy and her father has two master’s degrees in engineering. But in 2017, she received a panicked call from her mother. Her father had gone out and bought $6,000 in gift cards at Target for a phone scammer claiming to be her grandson. The man on the phone said that she was in jail and that he needed to be released on bail. By the time Kenyon reached her father, it was already too late. She had read the numbers on the gift cards over the phone.
“What these people do is they play on people’s emotions, they play on the fact that grandparents love their grandchildren more than you can imagine, and all their logic goes out the window,” says Kenyon. They reported the case to the police and a special program in their state was able to reimburse them for some of the lost money.
At that time, her parents were embarrassed and she was angry, but now they talk every day and comment on anything suspicious. She has taught them never to answer any of the unknown calls they receive each day and to keep a close eye on emails. She says that they are still tense from falling in love with something, and she worries about them day and night.
Many of these scams are easier to spot or filter with a little training, like looking for a misspelled email address or ignoring an unknown phone number on caller ID. Other scams are incredibly credible thanks to technology like identity fraudwhich allows the attacker to spoof a call from the number of someone they know, maybe even yourself.
Renee, a proud and protective mother of two grown daughters, makes sure they both call her once a day to check in. When it seemed her oldest son was calling at 11 pm on a recent night, Renee and her husband were confused but responded immediately. They were met by the deep voice of an unknown man at the other end.
“I was very shaken. He was very angry, very threatening,” says Renee, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used for fear of being attacked again. “The first thing she said was: ‘I’m going to kill her. I’m going to look for her. I don’t want to have to hurt her. I’ve been to jail before and I don’t want to go back. ”
The scammer said he was holding Renee’s daughter hostage and wanted money to let her go, and repeatedly asked for her Cash App information, an app Renee didn’t recognize. She threatened to cut her daughter’s throat. Renee completely believed him, but she managed to stay calm and continue talking to him, slowly gathering more clues that the situation was not what it seemed. They sent the police to her daughter’s house, where she was found safe and confused. The man was a scammer who had falsified her number. When she finished, Renee’s calm was broken and she began to cry.
“I feel grateful, but I feel like my space and peace have been invaded and that was traumatizing,” says Renee.
Those feelings are common, says Matthew Mimiaga, a professor at UCLA.
“Scam victims often experience decreased life satisfaction and are likely to have higher levels of anxiety. and lower levels of happiness,” says Mimiaga.
Your persistent anxiety has real physical side effects that include feeling restless, nervous, or jumpy, Mimiaga says. It could cause people to become easily fatigued, have difficulty concentrating, or even get headaches and other unexplained pain.
Anyone can be targeted by phone and email scams, but the consequences can be worse for older people, says Iris Waichler, a licensed clinical social worker and author of “Role Reversal, How to Take Care of Yourself and Your Aging Parents.” ”
“They are extremely vulnerable and lonely. The reason they’re objective is that when someone reaches out, sometimes they’re just glad to talk to someone,” says Waichler.
Older people may already be worried about losing independence or appear to have diminished mental capacity, and are more likely to hold back an experience with scammers out of shame. The adult could be left with lower self-esteem and more self-doubt, says Waichler.
There have been some changes to try to help people avoid scams, at least through text messages and phone calls. In 2019, the big carriers agreed to use technology known as REVOLUTION/SHAKE to authenticate who is calling to reduce robocalls and spoofed numbers. It is being adopted by smaller cell phone carriers this year. The FTC has also proposed a rule to address robottexts, but it is still pending. Phone makers are trying to combat the problem on their end with features that tag some calls as possible spam, while companies like robokiller they are creating their own applications to filter and block.
Scammers, however, are always looking for new ways to adapt and new targets to pursue.
“As long as there are billions of dollars on the other end, it’s not going to stop,” says Chester Wisniewski, a senior research scientist at security firm Sophos.
For now, awareness and a few tools can reduce stress but not make it go away.
Pamela McCarroll’s husband, voice actor Michael McCarroll, has a lockdown app from his provider, but he made sure it was disabled when his wife was in the hospital for a week this month. Every time she saw a call from an unknown number, her stomach clenched and she thought, “Oh, God.” He was thankful that he was just spam, always.
