Setting up an older relative so this is less likely

Older people lose more money per scam than anyone else, and the usual response — a lecture about being careful — makes things worse, because the next time something goes wrong they will not tell you.

Here is an afternoon that actually helps. Do it together, at their pace, on their device.

The two agreements

These matter more than every setting below combined.

1. The call-back rule. Any unexpected contact about money ends with *"I'll ring you back"*, and then they ring a number they already had — off a bank card, a bill, their own contacts. Not a number they were given. Agree it as a household rule now, in calm conditions, so it is easy to follow under pressure.

2. "Ring me, any time, and I won't make you feel silly." Say it explicitly. Then be true to it the first time they ring about something obviously harmless, because that is the test.

If you do nothing else on this page, do those two.

One fact worth planting

No bank ever asks you to move money to a safe account. It is the single most useful sentence in UK fraud prevention, it defeats the most expensive scam there is, and it is short enough to remember. Say it once. Do not turn it into a seminar.

The afternoon

On the phone:

• Turn on automatic updates.
• Silence unknown callers, or at least switch on the network's spam filter. Most providers offer one

free and most customers have never turned it on.

• Make sure they know how to block and report a number, and do one together.
• Hide message previews on the lock screen.

On email:

• A strong, unique password, and two-factor. Email first, before banking — everything resets through

it.

• Save the recovery codes on paper, somewhere they will find them.
• Turn off remote image loading, which quietly stops read-tracking.

On banking:

• Turn on transaction notifications, so a payment is noticed in minutes rather than on a statement.
• Check whether their bank offers a lower daily transfer limit and set one. It costs nothing and caps

the damage of a bad hour.

• Show them where the app's own "report fraud" button is.

On the computer:

• Updates on automatic.
• Remove anything they do not use, especially old toolbars and "PC cleaner" software.
• Put the important phone numbers on a card by the phone: their bank, you, their GP.

What not to do

Do not take over their accounts. Independence matters more to most people than security does, and an arrangement they resent is one they will work around.

Do not install remote monitoring without a real conversation about it.

Do not forward them scam warnings constantly. It becomes noise, and noise is what a real warning has to cut through.

If it has already happened

Ring the bank immediately, use the phrase *"authorised push payment fraud"*, and follow getting your money back. Then report to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and the FBI's IC3.

And handle the shame, because that is the real risk. People delay reporting because they feel foolish, and delay is the thing that most reliably stops the money coming back. Nobody who does this professionally thinks less of the person they took it from.