It is a little-talked-about, but well-known fact that Canadian seniors are at the top of most online scammers’ lists. From sending emails with phishing links to hacking their social media pages to remove data and clone identities, scammers are having the time of their lives, and seniors are paying.
Other ways in which seniors are targeted are romance schemes, impersonation calls, AI voice cloning, brand-look-alike websites, and urgent family emergency frauds designed to exploit trust, authority, and emotional leverage.
To shine a brighter light on this evil that Canadian seniors are facing daily, I spoke with Dave Parkinson, founder of The John Parkinson Family Foundation, a foundation Dave started in honour of his father, John Parkinson, who lived to 95. This foundation was created to address measurable and growing problems faced by seniors mentioned above. I asked Dave why seniors are the main attraction in these scams.
“With age comes isolation. They have accumulated money throughout life, the pension, the property or home; they are lonely as well, so they are reaching out to people for assistance. Their spouses recently died they are left alone, and the world has changed. There are many varied factors that lead to seniors being targeted,” Parkinson said.
Another thing Parkinson said is so true is that seniors come from a generation where trust and your word meant something, and nowadays that’s a dying quality. “What it really comes down to is the exploitation of trust,” he said.
Parkinson touched on a very cruel nerve of these scams, the romance scams. This is where the victim’s heartstrings are being tugged, and there is an emotional burden attached. “This can completely devastate people not only emotionally, but financially as well,” Parkinson said.
As we spoke, it became clearer to me that with each passing day these scammers are becoming more emboldened and tech savvy. Even going to the point of using AI to mimic the voices of loved ones, complete with cloned images, and persuade the elderly to send them money.
How is this done, you might ask? These scammers go to places like Instagram where they match grandkids profiles, images, and voices, clone them, and move in for the financial kill on elderly family members.
The poor grandparents might get a call with an AI generated voice of their grandson claiming he is in jail in another country and needs some money, only to find out later that they were swindled. So be aware.
“These scams are becoming so complex and changing daily and evolving in a way that we have not seen in decades, especially since AI has advanced these technologies significantly.
Even the simple AI-generated programs like Cap Cut, which most children use to upload videos on TikTok, can clone your voice and image then get AI to generate videos with it of you and your voice by just entering text,” he shared.
I asked Parkinson why this kind of crime is so under-reported. “A lot of people feel ashamed and blame themselves,” he said. “This is a critical concern and needs more attention. Imagine 650 million dollars’ worth of these swindles just in 2024 alone, and that is just from the Canadian Fraud Center. According to them, over 90 per cent of victims do not even report the fraud.” This is especially true for romance swindles.
When someone can fake another person’s complete video image and translate their voice in any language, even synchronizing their lip movement in real time, I believe no one, not just seniors, will be safe from fraud once AI reaches its maximum potential.
What can be done I asked Parkinson, “Always keep up to date on your elderly family members, be suspicious of new people coming to offer help, there may be vultures. Make sure they are not clicking on unknown emails or downloading things on the computer. Talk to them about all these potential threats before they develop.”
The John Parkinson Family Foundation is family-funded and does not ask for money. The plan is to educate and do outreach. For more information visit: https://johnparkinsonfamilyfoundation.org/ on FB https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61586525897633
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