Training Older Adults to Resist Scams with Fraud Bingo and Scam Detection Challenges

CHI’20, Workshop on Designing Interactions for the Ageing Populations Addressing Global Challenges, April 25–30, 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA Abstract Older adults are disproportionately affected by scams, many of which target them specifically. In this interactive demo, we present Fraud Bingo, an intervention designed by WISE & Healthy Aging Center in Southern California prior to 2012, that has been played by older adults throughout the United States. We also present the Scam Defender Obstacle Course (SDOC), an interactive web application that tests a user’s ability to identify scams, and subsequently explains how to recognize the scams. SDOC is patterned after existing phishing-recognition training tools for working professionals. We present the results of running a workshop with 17 senior citizens, where we performed a controlled study that used SDOC to measure the effectiveness of Fraud Bingo. We outline the difficulties several participants had with completing SDOC, which indicate that tools like SDOC should be tailored to the needs of older adults. Additionally, we discuss how to adapt Fraud Bingo and SDOC for international audiences.