Sweden’s police force has launched the campaign “Don’t try to fool me” to inform and train the senior as regards protecting themselves from fraud and swindles. The training material has been prepared in collaboration with two organisations for the senior (PRO and SPF Seniorena) and one which tends to victims (Brottsofferjouren).
On the one hand, on the police webpage there is the material used to carry out this training programme – a PowerPoint presentation, a pdf document with advice for trainers and three documents with a list of tricks assigned to three preventive strategies: Be on your guard, Your home is your castle and Make your presence felt. Furthermore, on the YouTube channels of the two senior’s organisations there are also explanatory programmes for each of the preventive strategies, as well as a fourth video with fragments of a training session given by a police officer to a group of senior with the use of the campaign’s material.
Advice relating to Being on your guard or being alert focus on the safe use of credit cards. On the one hand, other people must not be able to see the secret code, when using cash dispensers or making payments in establishments. Moreover, tactics used by thieves to steel credit cards are shown, especially those involving distraction.
The strategy Your home is your castle focuses on warning against incidents which the senior could suffer at home. First of all, it warns about the tactics which strangers use to enter senior people’s homes, whether it is to check installations or to sell a product of some sort, or by making prior contact by telephone.
The third block of recommendations, Make your presence felt, warns about fraudulent behaviour used to acquire information which is personal or sensitive to victims, whether via Internet (with phishing or by sending emails from supposed companies or banks) or by telephone via some tele operators. If there are bills for goods or services which have not been ordered, it recommends complaining and contacting the consumer protection service.
The project is supported by a study of crimes against property suffered by the senior between June and December 2014, centred especially on different types of fraud and swindles.
It must be remembered that on the webpage of the Department of the Interior a series of recommendations are published for the senior which are relevant to different contexts (the home, theft, abuse, drivers and pedestrians, on the beach or emergency cases) and that the Catalonia police force also provides talks to put forward this security advice.
The videos and security advice published by the Swedish police force can be accessed on the following links:
- Be on your guard (Var på din vakt): vídeo – document
- Your home is your castle (Ditt hem är din borg): vídeo – document
- Make your presence felt (Syna bluffen): vídeo – document
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