Our kids grow up way too fast.

One day, you are changing their diapers, and the next thing you know you are teaching them to drive a vehicle.

Earlier this week, my teenage daughter reached a major milestone in her life: she was the target of her first phishing scam.

I have always felt fortunate that I have the opportunity to pick her up from school.  It gives us a few minutes to catch up and talk about her day.  To her, I am giving her a ride home, but because of the conversations we have, these trips mean much more to me.

On this particular afternoon, the first thing she told me when she got in was that someone had emailed her a job offer.  Even though they did not provide her with any details about the job, the person offering it did say that it could be done from home, that she would only work three hours a week, and that the pay was $300 a week.

Given that she is only 13, I instantly knew something was not right so I asked her to give me a few more details.  She explained that to apply all she had to do was fill out the form at the link in the email.  She admitted that she did click on the link, which took her to a Google form but did not fill it out because she was not sure of what to put for some of the questions.  She had planned to ask her mother and me to help her fill it out.

Thank God!

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I explained to her that, despite the fact that the email came from a ‘trusted’ source, it was a scam.

She was not surprised.  She’s a smart kid and I have a feeling that she had her suspicions that it was a scam.

I explained that, in the future, if she has any concerns about emails or text messages she receives, she should speak to an adult about her concerns.

 

An Open Letter to the Person Who Tried to Scam My Daughter

I do not know you, and I will probably never meet you, but I wanted to thank you.

Thanks to you, my sweet and innocent daughter now knows that not everything that comes into her inbox is legitimate, even if it appears to come from a legitimate source.

She now knows that she needs to question and second-guess everything she sees online.

Thank you!

That being said, as a scammer who purposely targets children, you are the lowest of the low.  It is bad enough when one of you targets our older loved ones, but targeting children and younger teens is a whole new level of low.

I really hope you give up the life you are currently living and find a legitimate form of employment.

Sincerely, 

A Concerned Parent

 

An Important Lesson Learned

I think we can all agree that this was a teachable moment.

It should serve as a reminder to all parents that we need to teach out kids about online safety at a young age.

That education needs to go beyond making sure that they are not divulging personal information to people they are playing Fortnite with.  Our kids must learn, at a young age, that they need to scrutinize even things that appear to come from legitimate sources.

The Kid's Health website has more details about talking to your kids about online safety.

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