I’ve posted about it ITT before but my 72 year old father in law is the same way and he loves telling us stories of how he “messes with” the scammers despite us always telling him he’s just confirming that his number is a possible mark. He’s also told us about a few times where he started to be scammed before realizing partway through it was a scam so I worry that it’s basically inevitable that one of these people is going to get him. My wife and I were talking about it today and our only real reassurance is he doesn’t keep his money all in one place and most of it is locked up in investments so he doesn’t have too much liquid cash to lose.
Yeah reading these stories makes me think need to at some point make my parents by a bunch of I-bonds and then change banking information so if they ever want to withdraw requires like weeks of paperwork or something
I think they could plausibly scam him into moving his investments to another brokerage, then give him their account number instead of his for the transfer. I wouldn’t assume those are safe.
Also one of the ones he figured out midway at some point will be smart enough to call him the next day from a different number and pose as law enforcement that was tracking the failed scam.
Combine those with a few more years of aging, and it could be very bad.
I’m feeling pretty good about my father being safe the next month since he doesn’t even want to use his debit card in a grocery store right now lol… He’s going to get $200-300 in cash at a time for his groceries and gas.
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Him being afraid of electronic money for the rest of his life can’t be -EV here. I’d feed that fear from time to time in your shoes.
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Literally I’ve been home for 18 hours, and he’s going to undo some of the most important work I did. I told him to spend $400-500 on a laptop but he didn’t want to so he got one for $160. I installed anti-virus software and anti-scam software. I helped him set it up, got his new email set up, and set it up so he could dock it with a monitor so he didn’t need a new PC too.
Now he’s complaining that it’s too slow and it’s the wrong version of Windows (I even checked with him which one before buying the laptop). I suggested he give it a few days to get used to it because it’s the same specs he told me the old one was, and then Black Friday isn’t too far away for a new one. But he started yelling at me about how important it is and how he NEEDS it.
So he wants to spend $400 on a faster one and it HAS to be here by Monday.
Kind of torn between fighting with him on it or throwing up my hands.
It’s their money so if they want to shell out for 5 laptops to have one for each room that up to them, you just don’t want them paying off Nigerian princes.
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Well that’s my concern. They won’t have the anti-scam software that alerts me if something is happening.
I would not use Windows. Mac and chromebooks cut off a lot of attacks.
Yeah anything outside Windows was already a non-starter. He’s unhappy I moved him from AOL to Gmail.
There any like family friends / extended family / etc local to them who could set up the laptops for them? Could also setup yourself and ship to them I guess
He insists on having it by Monday. Only thing I can think of is having him give me remote access, but that’s major 
energy even putting that software on briefly then relying on him to uninstall it. I want him to remain terrified of that type of software.
And nobody tech savvy enough with time enough to do it.
If you all get on a video phone call could he follow instructions enough to have you walk him through it by him videoing the screen?
I wonder if there is software you can install or control remotely?
PC Anywhere or other remote control software is key for you to keep control of the machine?
Maybe a more positive topic for the thread, I have a follow-up to this post from May:
I miss sleep but this little dude is pretty great.
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Mazel Tov!
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You’re a lot nicer than I would have been. Let em light all their cash on fire, just means you go to the shitty home where they beat the old folks. I’m sure you aren’t counting on some juicy inheritance or anything. Sounds like he’s a big bootstrapper anyhow, so if he gets too poor he can just pick himself up a bit.
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Dude’s cute, but the cats are probably pissed.