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Before you pack the bags and brave the roads, airways, and holiday sweaters of the season, I’d like to give you a mission, should you choose to accept it. Not “bring the pie” or “don’t start political arguments at dinner.” A job that actually protects your family:
Make it safe for the people you love to tell you if they’ve been scammed.
Now let’s talk about why the mission matters—and why the holidays are the perfect time to do it.
Tina II: The Return of the Scammers
A while back, I wrote about Tina. She spent ten years caring for a husband with dementia. Ten years of exhaustion, isolation, and disappearing into the role. When he died, the silence swallowed her.
Then came the first romance scam from a man who seemed to understand her grief, her years of invisibility, her craving for adult companionship. He drained tens of thousands of dollars from her accounts. She was devastated, humiliated, and furious with herself. She also worried that telling her kids would mean losing control of her money… maybe even her independence.
Her children made things worse by going into full panic mode. They treated the scam like a medical diagnosis of cognitive decline on Tina’s part. They talked about taking her to court “for her own protection.”
I met with Tina and her kids, and we got them to relent. They let Tina run her own life, albeit with some additional protections.
Then the second romance scam hit.
Different scammers, same gap in her life. When I talked to her about it, she said she knew on some level that it was a ruse, but it was the only thing happening in her life and the only people paying attention to her. Ouch.
Tina didn’t get scammed because she was cognitively impaired. She got scammed because she was lonely. And she was scammed a second time because once you’re targeted, you usually stay targeted.
So I changed the way we talked about scams with Tina and her family. Thankfully, it’s worked so far, and Tina is still self-directing her life with safeguards.
Here’s how I convinced Tina and her family that there was no shame in being scammed: I told them how it happened to me.
The reality is that nearly everyone gets scammed, or has their identity stolen, or has their data compromised. It doesn’t matter if you’re smart, successful, and even careful. It will almost certainly happen.
I told Tina about my own fiascos—fraudulent tax filings using my Social Security number, the time I gave the wrong person information on the phone like an absolute amateur, the cancelled cards and hours spent unwinding the mess.
That honesty and small vulnerability reframed her shame. I told her that I figured sooner or later, I’d get scammed or victimized again, just like she will, just like her kids will. If it can happen to a successful financial advisor who TEACHES fraud-protection strategies, it can happen to anyone.
Which finally opened the door to guardrails she’d accept without feeling infantilized. We did that by not focusing on being scammed, but what we would do after the scam happens. And you can’t do that if you’re ashamed to admit you’ve been scammed.
Your 5-part anti-scam holiday mission
The holidays are an ideal time to establish a protocol for being honest and comfortable with admitting to being scammed. Families are together. People may open up once conversations start going (especially if the wine has been flowing). Here are five ways you can set up the scam conversation and make it easier to go down than the stuffing on your plate.
1. Break the myth: scams aren’t a senior problem—they’re a human problem
Seniors are vulnerable to scams but hardly the only target. Drop anecdotes that show people are getting fooled by increasingly sophisticated scammers (“Did you see the story about AI-generated kidnapping calls?”). Or do what I did and admit your mistake about giving information to a scammer on the phone. You won’t be lecturing, you’ll be leveling the playing field.
2. Lean on each other to flush out scams
Make scam mitigation a team sport. Say things like, “I run weird emails past my wife or the kids, just in case. It saved my bacon more than once.”
If you normalize double-checking, people don’t feel singled out.
3. Focus more on responding to scams than preventing them
Prevention is important, but you also need to assume scams will happen. Decide together:
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Who do you call first?
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What do we freeze?
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What’s our “post-scam checklist”?
This restores control without removing independence.
4. Have a code word to foil scammers
Yes, like spies on a mission, you need a family code word that will identify family members in the case of voice-cloning calls, emergency impersonations, and kids-in-distress scripts. Pick something everyone in the family knows but would be impossible to guess or find online: old pet names, a favorite restaurant, an inside joke. Avoid things like old streets or companies people worked at, anything that can be easily found online.
Then use the code word through the holidays so everyone knows it and won’t forget it. You’ll be thankful if you get targeted by a fake AI call that sounds exactly like your grandkid begging for help.
5. Protect autonomy at all costs.
Older adults usually hide scams because of the reasons Tina did. They worry they will lose control and independence if they admit vulnerability. Reassure them this won’t happen by saying something like:
“You can always tell me if something feels off or you think you’ve been scammed. We’ll work through it together, and I will not take anything away from you.”
That sentiment alone prevents more harm than any bank alert.
Accept your mission now before the next scam hits
Before you leave your parents’ house, make it unmistakably normal to talk about scams.
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Tell a story.
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Name your own mistake.
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Crack a joke.
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Open the door so they don’t have to break it down later.
Because staying quiet about being scammed will only allow the scam to continue. Give your loved ones a gift that could be the most valuable one they receive, the ability to be honest and ask for help when they feel embarrassed for being duped. I know I’ll be passing that along as I’m passing the gravy boat.
Have a happy and scam-free holiday!
Related: The GoFundMe Generation: Getting Caught in the Gears of a Pro-Dependence Anti-System