Old people warned about online scams

Muscat: The Royal Oman Police has asked people to ensure that their parents and older family members are protected from the dangers of scams on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.
The advice comes as people over the age of 50 in Oman are increasingly seen to be using social media such as WhatsApp, with the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) reporting the number to be as high as 71 per cent.
However, ROP fears that, because older people may be unfamiliar with the way social media works, they may fall victim to scams, leading to them being conned into revealing sensitive information or having money stolen through the internet.
In a statement, Royal Oman Police said: “To avoid the danger of being conned, make sure that you raise awareness in your household, especially among the elderly, about the importance of never sharing personal or bank information with anyone for any reason.
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“This responsibility belongs to us all, and it is our duty to raise the awareness of everybody around us in order to protect them from being conned. Become part of our campaign,” the statement added.
The move is a shared campaign between Bank Muscat and the Royal Oman Police to work against the danger of people being conned out of their money via social media.
Dr Saqib Ali, head of the Department of Information Systems at Sultan Qaboos University’s College of Economics and Political Science, said that older people tended to trust more easily and could therefore inadvertently share their data and other sensitive information with strangers and confidence tricksters online.
“Understanding social media and training the older generation to be aware of its dangers is not as easy as some people think it is,” he told Times of Oman. “When our parents were younger, they used to live in closer, more tight-knit communities, and so do not see the harm of sharing information with others, because everyone used to share information with everyone else, and the levels of trust were far higher.
“Now, however, there is far more awareness about privacy issues, and your parents or grandparents may not know this, so they might unknowingly share their information with people online, and once that information is shared, you never know what will happen with it,” added Ali.
“Please therefore take the time to educate your elders about how social media works so that they will understand it and reduce their exposure to danger online.”