Students Launch Senior Scam Awareness Project
- San Ramon students launched Project Cybershield to teach seniors how to recognize and avoid common scams. - They held workshops and spoke at the FBLA conference to reach older residents and community groups. - Organizers say the outreach aims to reduce elder fraud and improve reporting, partnering with local venues. (patch.com)
Students in San Ramon have started Project Cybershield, a local campaign that teaches older residents how to spot phone, email, and internet scams before they lose money. (patch.com) The project is led by local students and has included workshops for seniors plus presentations to community groups around San Ramon. The students also recently spoke at a Future Business Leaders of America conference to widen the effort beyond a single audience. (patch.com, fbla.org) Patch previously reported that San Ramon student Adya Gupta and her group Impactt Kids were already running trainings for seniors on how to avoid phone and internet scams. That earlier April 14, 2025 report described the work as hands-on fraud prevention aimed at older adults in the community. (patch.com) The outreach is landing amid steep losses from fraud among older Americans. The Federal Trade Commission said in its 2024-2025 older adults report that older adults in 2024 reported losing more money to investment scams than to any other fraud type. (ftc.gov) Federal Bureau of Investigation data points in the same direction. The Internet Crime Complaint Center said people over 60 reported the most complaints and the highest losses of any age group in 2024, as total reported losses across all cybercrime categories hit $16.6 billion. (ic3.gov) The Federal Trade Commission has also tracked a surge in high-dollar impersonation scams aimed at older adults. In an August 2025 data spotlight, the agency said losses over $100,000 reported by people 60 and older in those scams rose from $55 million in 2020 to $445 million in 2024. (ftc.gov) One gap these student programs are trying to close is reporting. A Project Cybershield presentation posted online says 23% of scam victims never report what happened, and the group’s model includes teaching seniors where to turn after a fraud attempt. (prezi.com) That same presentation says the students built workshops around common warning signs, including phishing emails, password security, and the “grandparent scam,” which uses urgency and family panic to push victims into sending money. The group also outlined plans for bilingual materials and a “program in a box” that other communities could reuse. (prezi.com) In San Ramon, the immediate goal is smaller and more practical: teach seniors how to pause, verify, and report. The students are now pairing school-based organizing with talks at public venues, trying to make scam prevention as routine as any other community safety lesson. (patch.com, patch.com)
