By Rebecca Wiessmann
In this Tech Tuesday livestream, Steve’s chair is temporarily filled by guest host Kent Mulkey, who opens with a simple reality: senior living leaders are losing sleep over scams, and for good reason.
Kent is filling in while Steve travels to CES in Las Vegas, and he uses the time wisely — bringing in Macaulee Cassaday, Program Director at Cyber-Seniors, to talk about what’s changed, what hasn’t, and what communities can do that’s practical, human, and repeatable.
Cyber-Seniors, Macaulee explains, started as a high school community service project in Toronto: two sisters teaching older adults how to use technology. It grew into a documentary, then a nonprofit, and now an international effort built around an intergenerational model — young people and older adults learning together to bridge the digital divide. But the conversation quickly shifts from “How do I use this device?” to the tougher question: How do we stay safe once we’re connected?
The Scam Landscape Is Getting Smarter
Back in 2010, in the early “computer lab” era, the gap looked different. Many older adults didn’t have laptops. Smartphones weren’t the everyday tool they are now. Teaching was about basics: email, Skype, and simple social media.
Scams existed then, but they were often blunt instruments — big promises, clumsy grammar, obvious red flags. The “Nigerian prince” email is practically a punchline.
Now, Macaulee says, the landscape is more convincing and more dangerous. Phishing attempts are polished. Language is cleaner. Grammar isn’t the giveaway anymore — because scammers can use tools (including AI language models) to produce messages that look legitimate. And the impersonation is more serious: banks, government agencies, PayPal, social platforms — institutions people are trained to trust.
The result is a shift senior living teams feel every day: residents are more connected, which is a good thing … and also exactly what makes them reachable.
How Scams Actually Work: Patterns Beat “Scam Stories”
Macaulee breaks down the big categories without turning it into a cybersecurity lecture:
- Viruses/malware: the “you have to download it” threat — unsafe websites, untrusted downloads, sketchy attachments. Sometimes it steals data, sometimes it locks files, sometimes it just gums up the device and ruins your day.
- Password attacks: weak passwords that are easy to guess or leaked passwords from a hacked company. The real danger accelerates when people reuse the same password everywhere.
- Phishing (the biggest day-to-day threat): emails, texts, and calls that impersonate a trusted source and try to get you to hand over information.
But the most useful part of Macaulee’s explanation isn’t the list — it’s the emphasis on the pattern.
Yes, knowing common scams helps (“package delivery,” “grandparent,” “bank alert,” “social media lockout”). But if teams only memorize scam types, they’ll always be playing catch-up. The better defense is learning what stays consistent across almost every fraud attempt:
- Urgency (“Act now or your account will be shut down.”)
- Emotion (fear, excitement, pressure, embarrassment)
- A convenient link (that is not actually the real website)
Macaulee’s example is painfully familiar: a “PayPal” email warning of suspicious activity, a link to “log in immediately,” and a fake site designed to look like the real one. The victim doesn’t “get hacked” by magic. They’re nudged — emotionally — into handing over credentials.
The scams aren’t always dramatic, either. Sometimes the ask feels mundane: date of birth, home address, email, “just confirm this.” But paired with other details scavenged online, those small data points become the ingredients for identity theft, account takeovers, or highly believable impersonations.
Why Older Adults Get Targeted: Perception, Trust, and Money
Kent asks the question everyone asks: Why seniors?
Macaulee offers three big drivers:
- The perception of lower tech fluency (even as that’s changing).
- A tendency to be more trusting (scammers believe they can exploit that).
- Accumulated wealth — the assumption that older adults may have retirement savings and accessible funds.
It’s not flattering, but it’s the logic criminals use. And it’s why senior living can’t treat this as an occasional inconvenience. It’s a persistent threat vector aimed directly at the people communities serve.
What Staff Can Notice Without “Spying” on Residents
The most actionable section of the conversation is about what senior living staff can do — without turning into device police.
Macaulee points first to education and normalization: communities should be talking about platforms residents use (email, texts, social media), because different platforms come with different risks. She suggests simple, preventive moves that fit daily life:
- Encourage residents to save contacts and be cautious with unknown numbers/emails
- Help residents lock down privacy settings on social platforms
- Discourage accepting friend requests from people they don’t know
- Make security “part of setup,” not an afterthought (strong passwords, privacy defaults)
Then she shifts to behavioral indicators that might suggest someone is already in the middle of something:
- Increasing isolation (both a risk factor and a symptom)
- Stress, depression, or withdrawal
- Sudden secrecy around devices or communications
- A new “relationship” that becomes consuming, especially in romance scams
She’s careful about autonomy — residents should live their lives. But communities can create a culture where staff casually ask the kinds of questions that keep doors open: What do you like doing online? Who are you talking with? What apps have you been enjoying? When done with warmth, those questions aren’t interrogation. They’re relationship.
Oversharing: The “It Seems Harmless” Trap
Kent presses on social media oversharing, and Macaulee makes it concrete: the issue isn’t “don’t post.” It’s “don’t post publicly what you wouldn’t share with a stranger.”
The sneaky part is how harmless details can become dangerous. Security questions often involve personal history — where you met your spouse, names of family members, hometown streets. If those details are posted openly, they’re essentially answers to password-reset prompts.
Tagging full names of family members, sharing grandkids’ names, posting lots of identifiable details — those can feed “grandparent scam” impersonations and targeted fraud attempts.
Her best advice is both simple and surprisingly hard to enforce: make profiles secure first (privacy settings), and then share with people you actually know and trust.
Don’t Act Like It’s “A Senior Problem”
Kent notes that families often hesitate to bring this up because it can sound infantilizing. Macaulee’s counter is refreshing: start with empathy and a shared reality.
Everyone gets scam texts. Everyone gets trick emails. Even Macaulee — someone who lives in this space — has to pause, google a link, and verify whether a message is real.
And then she drops the line that flips the emotional dynamic: young people may be more likely to fall for online scams than older adults. That’s not a dig at younger folks — it’s a reminder that “digital native” doesn’t mean “digitally literate.”
The goal is a peer-to-peer conversation: We’re all being targeted. Let’s compare notes. What are you seeing? What do you do when you’re not sure?
What Communities Often Overlook: Confidence and Agency
When asked what senior living is missing, Macaulee doesn’t say “more software” or “more controls.” She says confidence.
If communities only “do it for residents” — set everything up, manage everything, handle all the tech — residents don’t build the muscle to protect themselves. Safety improves when older adults keep their agency and learn the how and why behind the steps.
Her model is coaching, not rescuing: sit beside them, guide them, but let them do the work — set the password, adjust privacy settings, learn the patterns.
And her final advice is quietly profound: alongside education, stay connected in real life. Fraud thrives in isolation. People who have trusted humans to call — before they click, before they send money, before they respond — are safer. Offline community is still one of the strongest anti-scam defenses available.
