What makes seniors so vulnerable to cyber-cons?

Mumbai police received more than 7500 cyber fraud cases from January to June but they could solve only 401 of them wherein mostly nontech savvy senior citizens were the targets according to the official dataCyber fraud cases started rising in the city since COVID19 hit the country as most people started working from home and spending more time on the Internet and the crooks took advantage of increased online presenceThe Mumbai policersquos data also showed that more than 2500 cases were registered in June alone Although the Mumbai police have not mentioned the different cyber fraud cases related to senior citizens the FIRs available on its website suggest that the elderly population is the most vulnerableAlso readAfter electricity bill scam cyber crooks adopt new method to dupe peopleldquoSenior citizens are more vulnerable because they come from a generation that trusts humans more than technology Another reason is they panic on receiving messages about electricity disconnection KYC of SIM card and banking details and they immediately call on the numbers provided in the text The moment they see someone extending a helping hand they become more vulnerable particularly when their children are not aroundrdquo said cyber psychologist Nirali BhatiaRecent victimsIn one of the recent cases 81yearold Subhash Zaveri approached the Malabar Hill police station on July 20 seeking help as he had lost Rs 50000 to cyber criminalsAssistant Inspector cyber Nilesh Bankar who was dealing with another case of cyber fraud took his details and found out that the money was transferred through payment gateways to different platforms including Flipkart where Rs 36000 was sentHe immediately wrote to Flipkarts nodal officer and contacted him on the phone to get the amount blocked before fraudsters could purchase something using the fraud amount Another transaction of Rs 6000 was made on MobiKwik which was also blocked The remaining amount was used in small amounts hence Bankar managed to secure Rs 42000I was scrolling through Facebook when I saw an ad about lsquobuy one get one freersquo thali offer from Bhagat Tarachand Restaurant I clicked on the link contacted the number provided on it and shared my debit card details and then the OTP I got I was not aware what OTP was and ended up losing Rs 50000rdquo Zaveri told middayIn another case Vijay Shah 70 lost over Rs 97000 after he contacted a number he had found on Google while looking for AC repair services of Usha brand He filed a complaint at Gamdevi police station on July 20ldquoThe person on the call shared a link with me and asked me to make a payment of R10 which I did through my credit card Thereafter two transactions of Rs 48696 each took placerdquo Shah said in his statement to the policeNiranjan Nanavati 70 a Cuffe Parade resident was duped of Rs 122918 after he received an email about his Netflix membership expiring I clicked on the restart membership tab in the email and filled in my credit card details after which multiple transactions took place on my card Later I realised I had been dupedrdquo he states in his statement to Gamdevi policeldquoIn most of the cases senior citizens are more vulnerable because they are not tech savvy and fraudsters take advantage of that We have been trying our best to stop such frauds but cyber awareness is also necessaryrdquo said Neelotpal deputy commissioner of police Zone 2Types of fraudsThe types of cases are related to phishing spoofing of email pornography obscene email social media fraud hacking cheating which includes customer gifts purchase fraud job fraud loan fraud insurance fraud investment fraud matrimonial fraud cryptocurrency fraud credit card fraud extortion and data theftFrom 302 cases to over 2500 in six monthsMonth Total no of cases No of cases solvedJanuary 302 19February 534 35March 952 61April 1468 76May 1957 90June 2506 120