Senior citizens are particularly vulnerable to fraud, and according to MetLife’s Mature Market Institute, “American seniors lose $2.9 billion a year to fraud.” Therefore, it is particularly important for seniors to be concerned about privacy. I recently gave a presentation to the residents at Smith Village in Chicago to help them identify various privacy concerns and a list of Do’s and Don’ts to combat fraud.
It is important to understand that privacy worries stem from the “Internal” and the “External.” Internal privacy concerns relate to issues people have control over, whereas External privacy relates to issues that people have no control over. Some Internal controls include: passwords, PINs, texts and telephone calls. External issues relate to data breaches by companies that have personal information.
The Top 10 List of privacy concerns include both the Internal and External:
- Unsecure paper documents;
- Suspicious or scam phone calls;
- Suspicious texts;
- Suspicious emails;
- Suspicious web messages;
- Online credit/debit transactions;
- Online banking;
- Social media settings;
- Home computer settings; and
- Data breaches.
Check back tomorrow for Part 2 where I’ll discuss each privacy concern in more detail.
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