You help a family member being scammed by staying calm and non-judgmental, working with them to verify what’s really going on, and taking action to limit the damage; without accessing anything on your own.
Suspecting that a loved one is being scammed is a tough experience. On top of that, how to actually navigate this scenario is hard. Talking about it with them without triggering shame or denial seems like a tall order.
Is your family member aware that they are being scammed? Are they in denial? How do you know for sure they are being scammed? Are they contacted through email, sms, or are they having conversations over the phone?
The same checks we use throughout Ozarc for spotting phishing apply here too. But now it is aimed at protecting someone else instead of yourself.
Already certain something’s wrong: they told you directly, or someone else did? You can skip ahead to step 3 in this article. Still going on a feeling, with nothing concrete yet? Start with the signs below.
These steps offer you a sequence you can go through if a family member is being scammed:
- Determine they are actually being scammed by observing the signs mentioned below
- Approach them about it: are they open and forthcoming about it or do they refuse to believe it?
- Verify the nature of the attack and assessing the damage
- Recover losses if necessary
1. Look For Signs a Family Member is Being Scammed
I’m going to be upfront: without joint access to their accounts you’ll mostly have to rely on their behaviour, what they tell you in passing, and what a third party like a bank, another family member, or a friend tells you.
t’s perfectly normal for family members not to share what they do online, what they spend money on, or who they talk to. If a scammer did target them, that’s even more reason to hide it.
Alternatively, the scammer may have purposely isolated them by telling them to keep it quiet.
Scamwatch also has a solid list of red flags worth checking, alongside what’s below: Red flags checklist for family and friends
With that said, these are signs you can and should look out for if you feel someone is scamming your family member; if you don’t have access to their accounts or devices.
If you do have access to their accounts or devices, a few specific things are worth checking, covered at the end of the following section.
What They Tell You Directly
You can infer a lot by speaking with your family member directly:
- They mention a new friend, contact, or romance
- Sudden investment or business opportunity
- Selected for something
- Payment requests
Do they mention a new friend, contact or romance? Are they having travel plans all of a sudden? Especially if they have never met this person in real life, that could be a sign someone is scamming them.
Are they talking about a sudden investment? Scammers often use too-good-to-be-true offers to lure victims in moving sums of money. If they mention that they are considering an investment, a good offer, or a business opportunity, it could indicate a scammer is targeting them.
Furthermore, being ”selected for something” or being contacted about a problem that needs fixing right away are potential signs.
Finally, if they casually mention paying, or that someone asked them to pay with gift cards, wire transfers, or cryptocurrency, that could be a big giveaway that something is off. Legitimate transactions essentially never use those methods.
Behavioral and Emotional Changes to Watch For
Behavioural and emotional cues that a family member is being scammed could be:
- Secrecy
- Defensiveness
- Isolation, pulling away from loved ones
- Spending noticeably more time on their phone or laptop
- Stressed
Secrecy, examples of this type of behavior are subtly hiding their phone screen when you walk in, logging out of accounts quickly, or closing browser tabs.
Defensiveness, for example, when you gently ask probing questions about the ”opportunity”, new contact, or request made by an external party. Your family member may be getting irritated, silent or tense the moment you ask.
Moreover, if a family member is being scammed they may be consciously isolating themselves. This is because they know you might question the validity of the interaction in question, and they’re trying to avoid that.
When they spend noticeably more time on their phone or laptop than usual, it could indicate that something enticing (like the new contact or business opportunity) has crossed their path. If the amount of time they spend on it is out of the ordinary, it could indicate that your family member is being scammed.
When a family member is being scammed they could be stressed about it but aren’t telling you. Stress from an active scam can’t be released by telling you because they intend to keep the interaction private.
Put The Signs Together
These are signs that a family member is being scammed. It is important to honestly assess the amount of signs you see and form an estimate based on that. One sign alone means little, a pattern means something.
Access-holder note: If you have legitimate access and consent to the family member’s banking accounts, look for unusual transfers or purchases.
If you have the strong impression that they are being scammed, later steps in the article will help you verify that that is the case.
2. How to Talk to a Family Member You Suspect Is Being Scammed
What comes next is dependent on if they are open to talk with you about it of they refuse to believe they are being scammed. Moreover, it highlights the importance of securing the data of the rest of your family if they have access.
A great recommendation I have, is reading Scamwatch’s Conversation starters for family and friends. It gives you actual sentences you can say, and how your loved one might respond. It talks you through different scenarios and ways you could approach your family member.
When Your Family Member Is Open and Aware About Being Scammed
This would be a positive scenario to find yourself in. Not only does this open the door to verifying together exactly what happened; it leads to damage control being easier because they are forthcoming about what did or didn’t happen.
Hopefully they are honest about what happened, if they entered credentials somewhere, if they made a transaction, purchased giftcards, or divulged otherwise sensitive information. Moreover, through what devices they were reached, like mobile or desktop.
Keep their emotions in mind: admitting they’ve been scammed is never easy. Understandably, they may carry guilt or shame.
The last attitude you want to assume, is the ”I told you so” frame. It doesn’t just sting, it will discourage them from coming clean the next time they are the victim of something similar.
When They Refuse To Believe They Are Being Scammed
In a lot of cases, if somebody is the victim of a scam they simply refuse to believe it. This is often the case in romance scams, but happens in other scams too.
Romance scams carry an extra layer that other scams don’t: on top of losing money, they lost a relationship they saw as real and genuine. That can be an extra factor in prompting denial or refusal to believe it.
But there are also plenty of other instances where the family member refuses to believe it.
This situation is difficult to navigate. Most users who deal with it talk about it on Reddit: helping an unwilling adult who is in denial is extremely hard.
Furthermore, legal and protective steps are rarely possible unless clear mental decline like Alzheimer’s or Dementia is suspected or diagnosed.
What to do When A Family Member Refuses to Believe They Are Being Scammed
What is important is maintaining a non-judgmental, non-confrontational attitude when speaking with your family member.
Rarely does presenting more evidence in the moment work, they will often dig in.
Reducing pressure often helps more than adding evidence; if the first attempt to convince them didn’t land, more proof usually just reads as another attack.
Saying something along the lines of: ”I’m not trying to prove you wrong. I’m scared of what happens if I’m right and we don’t act in time.” can potentially disarm negative feelings they have about the situation.
In the worst case scenario, they shut down completely and they may possible remain the target of the ongoing scam.
Because honestly, in some cases nothing works. A journalist who specializes in fraud recovery has written about a case where two adult sons spent seven years trying to talk their father out of a string of scams, and still watched him lose his entire retirement savings in the end.
In the best case scenario, they don’t get defensive and may even talk you through about what happened. Finally, it would be even better if they agree to sit down and collect evidence of the scam with you.
More often than either case, they’ll stay unconvinced but don’t cut contact with you either. This keeps the door open for perhaps convincing them later.
Make Sure Your Family Member Doesn’t Have Access To Your or Other Family Member’s Identity, Data or Finances
Remove them as an authorized user or joint holder on shared accounts if the situation is severe enough to warrant it, temporarily.
It is better to be safe than sorry. It is no shade on them personally; but you don’t know what they will or will not divulge in these types of situations.
One person being scammed is enough. Exercise a bit more caution if you know they also have access to you (or your families’) immediate account details, data, wallet, financials, etc. It is important that you and other family members are secured.
3. Verifying What’s Going On
This is dependent on if they are willing to sit down with you and look at the message, email or SMS together or not.
It’s really powerful to trace the family member’s steps and determining exactly what happened, on which device they were reached, through either social media, email, phone call, etc.
Ask them to divulge that information, and if they are willing to show it to you.
In what manner were they duped and what was the nature of the scam?
These are the channels your loved one most likely got scammed through:
- Text (SMS): one of the most commonly reported contact methods, also known as smishing
- Social media: the most lucrative channels to scam: in 2025, an amount of $2.1 billion was lost by consumers in the U.S., as reported by FTC
- Phone calls: the second most common contact method overall, older people are especially susceptible
- Email: this will remain one of the most common channels hackers or scammers love to use, mainly by phishing
To improve your phishing awareness, read our comprehensive blog post article: How to Avoid Phishing Scams: a Step-by-Step Guide
Assessing The Damage Per Method And Securing Accounts
For assessing the damage, you are basically completely dependent on your family member telling you. Did they click a link in their email before landing on a fake login page and did they enter information? Did they give out their credit card number through a phone call? Or click something in a text message?
If it’s a phone call and they gave up information, you should ask your family member what they did or did not share. Did they say a password or PIN out loud? Read out a one-time code they received by text? What did they share with the alleged scammer?
You generally won’t be able to get a complete recording of the phone call from your telephone company. However, what they can provide, is metadata: call logs that show who called, when, and for how long.
This may be useful information if you decide to report the scam.
If they clicked a link in a phishing email, try to find the email together, determine which account the scam targeted. Was it a link to login with a PayPal account? Did Microsoft tell them to login? This information is critical in determining which account’s password you need to change, and on which account you need to enable 2FA for security.
Virtually any service could be chosen to target your family member with. What’s important is revisiting the mail, determining which service, and changing the password of that service’s account.
Furthermore, if the family member entered their credentials after clicking the phishing link, if that password is used for other accounts. If so, go to the other accounts on the different services or websites, and change them there too.
Report the phishing attempt. Read how to do it in Outlook 365 here: Where Is the Report Phishing Button in Outlook 365? (Quick Guide)
Finally, SMS-based scams, also called smishing, often have the same result as email phishing, which I described above. It is usually the case that you land on a fake login portal to enter credentials, which the hacker receives instantly. If your family member entered credentials, go to the relevant account and change the password instantly. Also enable 2FA.
Alternatively, it is possible that malware is installed on your phone. To troubleshoot, we have a separate article for this scenario: What to Do If You Clicked a Phishing Link on Your Phone
It goes over the scenario in detail and 5 steps you can take to assess damage, and maximize security afterwards.
The Hacker May Wait For Their Time to Strike
Here’s a personal story. A scammer phished me once, about two years ago. At the time, I didn’t even realize they’d succeeded. It looked like a completely legitimate and valid email of a hosting provider I used. It asked me to login, which I did, and I entered my credentials.
As a result, months later, I got invoices of about €800 each; the hacker got access to my account and the payment information attached to it. They were able to login and initiate transactions without me knowing or approving them.
Moral of the story, if you have been succesfully hacked, the damage may come months later. Even if nothing seems to have happened yet, it’s helpful to keep an eye on statements and account activity for months afterward, not just the first few days.
4. Recovery Of Lost Funds
If the scam involved credit card transactions, you have the best recovery odds of any payment method, but it’s not guaranteed.. Contact your credit card company, explain what happened, and go from there.
Contact your credit card company as soon as possible and give them as much information as they need.
If a wire transfer was made to one of the hacker’s accounts, contact your bank. Their fraud department can review your case if you supply them with proper information, information that you gathered in step 3.
If the scam involved gift cards or cryptocurrency, be aware: recovery is very unlikely. Gift card funds are typically drained within minutes of the code being shared, and crypto transactions are designed to be irreversible.
How to Help A Family Member Being Scammed: Conclusion
Helping a family member through a scam is rarely finished in one day.
You might spend weeks piecing together signs, trying to convince them, and seeing the scam messages for yourself.
Whatever happens, the goal is never to win the argument or proving you were right. What matters is that you identified the nature of the scam and took steps towards securing accounts and data.
Leave a Reply