We all think we’re too savvy to fall for stuff like this, and maybe that’s true, but I know some technophobes who’d be prime victims for this. I’m interested in discussion about how to prevent this sort of thing from happening beyond just telling Grandpa to never click on ads.

  • Wife got caught with a similar phishing attempt, except this was a text. She had legitimately had a missing package and was in the middle of dealing with it and was waiting on a communication for a fix when the fake text came in. Just incredibly unlucky timing that made it all feel ‘right’. Realized it like 30 minutes later when the real communication came and cancelled the cards, but at the scale and frequency of spam these days they’re bound to find people in plausible situations where their scam doesn’t feel quite so out of place.

  • If it’s someone you can help with their devices/app, using ad-blocking technologies may help somewhat:

    1. Set up home router / device DNS to use ad-blocking servers like AdGuard DNS
    2. Use ad-blocking apps from such vendors
    3. Use browsers that support ad-blocking extension like Firefox / u-Block Origin
    4. Use browsers that support malicious phishing/malware link like MalwareBytes

    For me, 1) is really easy and does bring peace of mind, with 0 complaints from the members.