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In today’s world of enhanced technology, the more sophisticated it gets the worse it is to try to catch up with the scammers that prey on people who are not always familiar with such enhanced technologies.  While watching C-SPAN3 the topic of discussion was “telephone scams targeting seniors” and the multitude of ways that the elderly have been scammed.

It was mentioned that when telephone scammers succeed in getting the scam “approved” they request that the person purchases a Green Dot Money Pak in various monetary increments and provide them with the code so the “requester” can have access to the funds.  On the show there were several individuals who shared their stories of their being “duped” by a telephone scam and it was made clear that the retail outlets that sell the Green Dot Money Pak should be held accountable also.  Taking a look at Green Dot’s packaging, the company has made some changes to their packaging to warm their customers to protect their money.  If you were sending funds to a loved one in need would you pay attention to the warning?  In all honesty I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t.

Scams against our senior citizens has been going on for many years and unfortunately as technology evolves the scammers are just that much more tech savvy.  Thankfully none of my elderly relatives have been victim of any type of scam but I truly feel some discontent for those seniors who have.  They’ve worked hard all their lives and to get to retirement and be duped by some trifling, lazy and greedy people makes my blood boil.

We must do what is necessary to protect our seniors, encourage your elderly relatives to not be embarrassed to say they have been targeted and help them to know the signs of fraud so it does not happen again.   While it is was a noble gesture by the Green Dot Corporation to remove the cards from the shelves, they also could have come to this decision a long time ago and not after several hundreds of thousands of people have been victims.  Although rather late, I still commend the company for making the necessary changes.

With more aggressive precautions, we can put a stop to fraud not just against the elderly but in general and those that commit these types of crimes should be locked up and the key thrown away.