[hart]

OK, guys, my mother answered one of those "your AOL account will be cancelled, give us all your personal information" emails.

She has called the bank who's card number she gave in the email, but she seems to have given mother's maiden name, soc sec #, and whatever they asked for.

What else does she need to do? Should she call all her credit card companies? any help here greatly appreciated.

I guess I have to engage in a major internet security and usage lesson here.

[dreilly1]

I imagine your next call ought to be to the three major credit reporting agencies, asking for any recent activity and asking to put a hold on all new credit account requests. You might also want to subscribe to one of their credit monitoring services for a while.

It might involve a little bit of money right now to expedite things and for the monitoring, but it might pay off with less headaches in the future.

edit: that should be her next call. They probably won't let you deal with it.

[hart]

we're trying to remember what they are: Experian, equifax and transunion?

[Cody Dawg]

1. Cancel ALL credit cards and have them reissued
2. Change ALL passwords on online (including bank) accounts and email accounts
3. Change ALL personal information dedicated to helping her/you get the password in event of forgetting the password
4. Cancel email account - get a new UserID
5. If she has an eBay account or Paypal account go in and change the UserID and change the passwords and in Paypal add an email account, make it the default, and completely remove the previous email account

That should about do it.

Unless she faxed them her driver's license and in that case she might want to have that reissued also.

Good luck.

[dreilly1]

Originally posted by hart:
we're trying to remember what they are: Experian, equifax and transunion?

yup.

http://www.experian.com/
http://www.equifax.com/
http://www.transunion.com/

[hart]

OK, she's off to the bank branch.

I gave her all these suggestions and I'll get on her to do them.

Plus the official Internet Security Lesson. Unfortunately, she's decided she doesn't "get" computers so her mind always shuts down when I try to explain stuff. Like what a browser is. First she has to open her mind and be one with the computing universe.

When I said that if a company seems to be sending you a request for personal info you should always navigate to the site in your browser directly she looked like I was explaining some physics theory. Part of the problem is that she uses AOL which obscures and confuses her understanding of how it all works. She's currently on an extended visit to me and using web mail which is confusing her even more.

Anyone know of a good, simple explanation of the necessary concepts? maybe a trip to the Dummies section of barnes & noble is in order.

[Oneota]

Originally posted by hart:
Unfortunately, she's decided she doesn't "get" computers so her mind always shuts down when I try to explain stuff. Like what a browser is. First she has to open her mind and be one with the computing universe.

My mom's the same way. Drives me nuts! She's the smartest person I know, except when it comes to anything involving electronics.

[OldManMac]

Maybe it's better if she stays off the computer, period. My brother and I bought our mother an iBook a couple of years ago. After her saying, for years that she was going to buy one, we knew that would never happen, so, despite her having the money, we bought it as a gift, with a printer, and a desk. From the the moment I set it up, she didn't want to touch it. I used to go see her every week, and I would try to get her to do something with it. No dice. She wasn't online either. After six months of the thing sitting unused, she decided that she didn't want it, so my brother took the whole shebang, and paid me my half. The same year, I bought her a cell phone, for emergencies, and she agreed to pay for the monthly fees, for two years. I would call her on the cell, and she would see my name on the screen, and call me back on her land line! She travels a fair amount of the time, and never took the cell with her. She's 80, and is sharp as a tack, and still lives well on her own, but she doesn't get computers and new tech stuff, and, unfortunately, I found that out the hard way.

If, as you say, your mother doesn't get computers, maybe she ought to stay off them. It sounds to me like you're banging your head against a wall, hoping that the wall will move. It won't.

[dreilly1]

Originally posted by hart:
Anyone know of a good, simple explanation of the necessary concepts? maybe a trip to the Dummies section of barnes & noble is in order.

How about "Never give out information to people via E-mail. Ever."

If you get an E-mail you think is legitimate, and you have a prior relationship with that company, odds are you have a phone number, too. Call them and ask about your account over the phone.

This is where bookmarks come in handy, too. If she can't get the concept of typing a URL into the address bar, just create a bookmark in a handy place for all the places she has accounts. Then tell her never to click on an E-mail link from one of these companies -- always use the bookmark. And if something is wrong with her account, it will probably tell her when she logs in.

Not Trusting E-mail is Internet Security Lesson #1 as far as I'm concerned. It might be too paranoid, but it's simple and non-technical, so most people will get it.

[sugar_coated]

You mom will know better now.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by KarlG:
Maybe it's better if she stays off the computer, period. My brother and I bought our mother an iBook a couple of years ago. After her saying, for years that she was going to buy one, we knew that would never happen, so, despite her having the money, we bought it as a gift, with a printer, and a desk. From the the moment I set it up, she didn't want to touch it. I used to go see her every week, and I would try to get her to do something with it. No dice. She wasn't online either. After six months of the thing sitting unused, she decided that she didn't want it, so my brother took the whole shebang, and paid me my half. The same year, I bought her a cell phone, for emergencies, and she agreed to pay for the monthly fees, for two years. I would call her on the cell, and she would see my name on the screen, and call me back on her land line! She travels a fair amount of the time, and never took the cell with her. She's 80, and is sharp as a tack, and still lives well on her own, but she doesn't get computers and new tech stuff, and, unfortunately, I found that out the hard way.

If, as you say, your mother doesn't get computers, maybe she ought to stay off them. It sounds to me like you're banging your head against a wall, hoping that the wall will move. It won't.

When my grandmother was still alive, we thought she'd never get into computers either. But when she eventually got one, I taught her how to use it well enough to use e-mail, play solitaire games, etc. She positively loved it, since all my aunts and uncle are scattered all across the country, and now she could communicate with them easily, by e-mail. And she did, every day, and it brought her a lot of joy. So, I wouldn't say that it's always true that elderly people can't learn how to use a computer. It certainly wasn't in this case.

And regardless of this, keeping her off a computer won't keep her safe from being scammed anyway. Some of these people call on the phone and ask for information. The best thing to do is what dreilly1 said: Tell her never to give out confidential information, and not to just trust anyone who says they're from your bank, your ISP, or whatever.

[OldManMac]

I didn't mean to imply that all older people shouldn't use computers. Hart stated that his mother doesn't get computers and that her mind locks when he shows her something. That's usually a clear sign that there is no interest, and people who have no interest in something rarely pick up on it, because there's always something else to occupy one's mind. One can't force people to learn something.

I've sold thousands of computers in the last 11 years, and there have been a few who've bought them who shouldn't own a computer, because they'll never get it. Those of us who do get it, tend to not understand how anyone could live without computers, when there is substantial minority who will never have them, and who live just fine without them.

[Big Mac]

If she still has that fraudulent message saved, you should print it out with full headers, report it to the various agencies who will care and see if you can do some investigating of your own on it. You should be able to find the ISP of the scammer easily enough. See if the ISP is at all sympathetic to your mother's plight. If you by chance have access to an attorney you could subpoena their records on that customer.

[Superchicken]

I am always worried about my mom doing this sort of thing... thankfully though she's got her compaq which she kinda is OK with, I figure once I get her over to the OS X side she'll pick it up, and HOPEFULLY be happy.

[wdlove]

I'm sorry to hear about this security problem with you Mom. Hope that she will end up OK.

[Eriamjh]

Go here: https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

Request all three in one fell swoop.

[hart]

UPDATE:

well, let's see. She had been working on most of the cancelling/changing etc. I wrote out a nice little list of security basics for her to read plus an explanation of some basic computing/internet concepts like what a browser is. I knew I was going to have difficulties when she didn't get that her AOL pasword was entirely different from her .mac password. She just keeps saying she doesn't get it like a mantra. She doesn't stop saying it long enough to actually "GET" anything. I'm sort of in agreement that she shouldn't be using computers if she doesn't want to learn about them. It's always been that if something goes wrong she just instantly assumes that she doesn't get it rather than, say, looking at the Help file. Unfortunately she has a six month old eMac and just bought an iBook for her extended visit to me.

AOL was extraodinarily rude and obstructive with her about this incident so she cancelled her account with them. Even that was almost impossible. I was actually amazed at how bad the customer service was. I've been telling her to drop them for a long time and she even opened an Earthlink account with her eMac and then went back to AOL. I know AOL is supposed to simplify the internet experience but I feel it makes it more confusing.

I do think that this will be an excellent object lesson for her. She had a Gatweay for 5 years and never ran any security software. My sister and I would go over periodically and reinstall everything from scratch when the machine finally freaked out completely but she personally never experienced why computer security might be a good thing. I'm sure she was probably the central hub for some major virii all those years. And when her data disappeared, of course, she just would throw up her hands and say "I just don't get it."

Anyway....thanks for the help. I gotta keep on her to make sure she follows through. An additional tidbit that came out was that she had ALL her retirement cash in one checking account which seemed a bit....incautious? I think she's going to change that too now.

Hart

[Big Mac]

It's unfortunate that a considerable percentage of people falling for online scams are the older people among us. Crooks prey on IRL with all kinds of scams, and scammers will screw them over online (but at least online scammers probably are not specifically targeting them). I ran into the "I don't understand" complex with my paternal grandfather. I tried to explain to him that driving a car is much more complicated than using a Mac, but he would have nothing of it. And to be fair that is not a fair comparison, since he has been driving for decades. The older generations did not grow up with the close relationship to technology that we have benefited from, so what seems to be intuitive to us may well be perplexing to them. We have to guide them as much as possible and accept the limitations of the "technologically disabled."

[RAILhead]

She is teh screwed.