Older people are “too intimidated” to get help with online scams, despite the surging amount of cyber crime, research suggests.
That is the warning from BT Group, which has joined with Gavin & Stacey star Melanie Walters, who played Gwen in the show, to encourage people over 65 to find support amid the surge in such attacks.
More than half of over-65s are worried they could be a victim of an online scam. Nearly nine out of ten would like more guidance on how to spot and avoid them, research from BT warned.
Older people are already being sought out by scammers. Some 44 per cent of people over 65 said they had been targeted more than 10 times.
But one in five people feel “too intimidated” to attend tech classes to learn how to counteract the threat, the same research warned.
Walters said that she had been subject to such an attempted last year, and had almost lost thousands of pounds.
“What struck me the most was how sophisticated the scam was. I am quite cautious online and know not to click links or anything like that - but these scammers were playing the long game,” she said.
“I began when I received an email warning me that the image data I had used to open my new business account had become compromised - I assumed this meant my passport - and I was offered a year’s free credit score check with a well-known company, which I could access using a link and a code.
“A month later a letter arrived from a different bank, saying someone had tried to open an account in my name. I was really shocked by how manipulative the scam was. If I had gone ahead and shared my bank details, I would have risked losing thousands of pounds.”
She was part of a group taking part in a tech class that aimed to help older people spot potential scams, which attempted to train people on how to spot scams as well as warning them about the rise in technology such as AI, which is already being used to clone people’s voices and create ever more sophisticated attacks.
