Marti DeLiema Featured on AARP Podcast 'The Perfect Scam'
Assistant Professor Marti DeLiema was featured on the AARP podcast "The Perfect Scam," which tells the story of a son's efforts to protect his father from a series of online scams.
- Part one of the podcast tells the story of a son finding unusual transactions on his father's bank account, and the efforts the family made to disentangle their father from multiple scams, including an online romance.
- Part two of the podcast continues the story, which details the depth of the rift within the family and the scope of the fraud that was only learned after his father passed away.
Even though this story ended in tragedy, DeLiema provided a voice of hope, offering actionable, research-based insights into how to increase awareness of online scams with older adults.
"We recently did a study with the United States Postal Inspection Service," DeLiema explained in Part 2 of the podcast. "It was a randomized controlled trial of a mailed fraud prevention campaign to protect individuals who had been victims of mail scams from falling for a subsequent mail scam.
"We did find that providing victims with a series of mailed fraud fighter materials that really speak to them about overcoming, overpowering fraud, working as a team, protecting their neighbors against scams, identifying reporting scams. When these repeat messages were repeated, we found that it significantly reduced their likelihood of falling prey to a subsequent mail scam. The messages fade, so you need constant kind of booster shots of fraud education and fraud prevention."