Seniors

It’s a bad sign when you get a warning from Amazon about Prime scams.  Shopping online has definitely deteriorated when you receive a desperate email from Amazon warning about Amazon Prime scams.  But their advice is worrisome – you should check Amazon Messages to verify that a message is really from Amazon?  How hard can it be for a scammer to fake messages that look like they’re from Amazon? Did you know that Amazon Prime Day is a big day for scammers? The Better Business Bureau warns about lookalike websites, too-good-to-be-true social media ads, and unsolicited emails or calls during sales events this month. You might not know that "1,230 new websites that associated themselves with Amazon popped up in June. The vast majority were malicious or appeared suspicious, according to Check Point."

For those few who still have landline phones, scammers make them ring. It has become a source of entertainment in our home to string scam callers past the bot to the frenetic-sounding call center. Or we just let the phone ring 3 times – bots have limited patience. But there is one benefit of having an actual conversation with a call center rep, as well as watching TV Medicare Advantage advertising. These unsolicited caller scripts (‘is anyone in the home between the ages of 65 and 85?’) and ads are built on stereotypes of older adults (mostly women) and the premise that they are just plain stupid. Apparently they can’t do their own research and are desperate for advice. By the way, if CMS is ‘restricting’ Medicare Advantage plan advertising, that is not yet visible to a TV viewer.