6 essential tips to keep kids safe from online fraudsters
As under-25s lose an average £613 to internet scams...
We might assume the elderly are most at risk of online fraud, but it turns out children may not be as tech-savvy as we think.
A new report reveals that while over-55s on average lose £214 to scams, under-25s lose £613.
More than one in ten youngsters aged 18-24 have fallen victim to phishing scams – where fraudsters access personal details though online communication – compared to just one in 20 people aged over 55. Youths are also more likely to experience long-term damage from phishing attacks, and are ten times more at risk of mental health issues after being targeted.
Here, Sarah Martinez, campaign director for Get Safe Online, which commissioned the survey, and Sandra Peaston, assistant director of insight at fraud prevention service Cifas, show us how we can keep our kids safe online...
1 Make sure they read everything properly
Sarah advises parents to make sure their children are aware that they need to carefully read everything they receive – emails, Facebook messages or tweets – and be wary of bad spelling or grammar, an unfamiliar or non-matching sender address and a nonspecific greeting like, Dear Customer.
Sarah says: “The most important thing is to educate our youngsters, because we can’t police everything.
“Monitoring our children online is like teaching them to cross the road. We have to have a dialogue in place and control them to a certain extent, but it’s also about trusting them. If they know what warning signs to look out for, they can be better equipped at staying safe online.”
2 If it looks too good to be true – it probably is
If your child gets excited or starts boasting about an amazing deal online, ask questions. Sandra says: “Across the board, something that looks too good to be true should always be taken as a red flag.
“If something is being sold at a much cheaper than you would normally see it elsewhere, investigate and be aware it might not be genuine.”
3 Never turn off spam filters
Ensure your child’s email address and social media networks have properly installed filters to block dodgy messages and junk mail.
“It is also worth checking now and again that they’re still on,” Sarah says. Also make sure children know not to click on any strange-looking links or open attachments. “Dodgy links and attachments in emails, messages and social posts can infect your computer or mobile device with malware, which can hack into your personal details,” Sarah says. She also advises against young people having any form of social media account until they are at least 13, the minimum age restriction for most social networks.
4 Be suspicious
Sandra says young people are becoming increasingly seduced by money laundering tactics on social media, with fraudsters messaging youngsters directly, telling them they can earn a lot of money by letting them transfer money into their accounts.
“Be suspicious,” says Sandra. “Has your son or daughter got new trainers? Ask how do they afford that. If they have got new things and you don’t know how they afforded them, it’s probably time to start seeing what’s going in and out of their bank account.”
Sandra says another popular scam sees young girls being lured into paying for modelling shots that never materialise, or spending money on useless portfolios after being flattered into thinking they can forge a modelling career.
5 Privacy settings
“It can be complicated to ensure your children are properly protected from giving out too many personal details online, because social media sites like Instagram are used to actively attract as many followers as possible, so restricting personal information wouldn’t make sense,” explains Sarah.
The problem is that fraudsters can create a picture of people through the jigsaw method, by adding up small details from different social media accounts.
“Little things like saying where you live might reveal what football team you support, which might then be used as a password.
“Children should be advised to think about everything they post, no matter how innocuous it seems.
“And passwords should be regularly changed, with different ones used for each social media site.”
Sandra suggests that if a parent is in a position to monitor privacy settings on social media accounts as well, they should double-check how much of their children’s personal information is in the
public domain.
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Help them realise it’s a real crime
A lot of young people don’t recognise online fraud as a real crime because it doesn’t have direct physical ramifications, Sarah says. But if we teach our children how serious the issue is, the more alert they will be.
“It’s about making sure our young people are equipped with the resources to recognise it before they experience it.” Sandra’s team has been campaigning for financial fraud education in schools, to show kids the consequences of being sucked into a scam.
“If a young person is caught money laundering after being taken in by an online scammer, that could lead to 14 years in jail, worst-case scenario. We want to stop people from getting in these situations in the first place.”