Reasons for young people being at greater risk than their elders include young people spending more time online, as well as a tendency to engage with more apps and share personal information more freely, Deloitte’s 2024 Connected Consumer Survey found.
As soon as they get phones, young people are at risk of being scammed or extorted, especially if they have online access to their banking. They also often have access to parents’ smartphones and as a result, their credit cards.
As parents everywhere know, their offspring can be surprisingly lax when it comes to security and the people they meet online. They may not be able to differentiate between a real person and a fake profile. Young people often use the most obvious passwords for everything, and rarely change them.
Growing up with technology can lead to over-confidence in their ability to navigate the digital world safely. This familiarity may cause young people to feel bulletproof. They don’t get the message: “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.”
Nor do they listen to their parents. Eye-rolling is the usual response if parents try to talk to children about passwords or online safety. They think they know it all.
Some of the scams that affect children and young people include identity theft after sharing personal information online, phishing, fake contests and catfishing, online shopping fraud where they’re lured to buy non-existent goods, fake jobs that require upfront fees, and rental scams.
Worryingly, according to ECPAT Child Alert Trust, the scams are often linked to real or AI-generated nude photos, which are then used to blackmail teenagers.
Eleanor Parkes, national director of ECPAT, said the online world is changing so quickly that advice given by parents can be obsolete in a few months.
“Parents might say ‘don’t send nude photos’. The teens are just not going to say, ‘Oh, okay, I won’t,’ and then not,” said Parkes.
Parkes said financial sexual extortion (sextortion) of teenage boys in particular was growing at a very rapid rate.
“The parent might say goodnight to their 14-year-old boy and everything’s fine. The teen then starts chatting to someone online who they think is a girl of similar age to them. It might be only an hour later that they’ll exchange photos. As soon as they send that picture, the conversation switches into a blackmail conversation.”
This is even happening with AI-generated fake images, purporting to be the teen.
Either way, the scammer demands money, often in the form of Prezzy or iTunes cards, and sets a time limit, such as in the next hour.
“They say: ‘Otherwise, I’m going to share this with your family and your friends, and I’m going to ruin your life’,” said Parkes.
They threaten to share the photos with the teen’s friends, their parents, and others, such as their church and sports groups.
The conversation parents should be having with their children is about how to get help if online interactions go wrong.
“Identifying who they can go to,” said Parkes. That could be an uncle or aunt, a friend, a school teacher, someone at church, or a range of other people they can talk to without being told off, as parents might do, even inadvertently. Each young person is different.
“Parents have this false idea that the kid will come through to them and seek help.”
ASB’s digital fraud expert, Alex Hinde, has recommendations for parents, children, and teenagers. For parents, that includes:
How parents and caregivers can help
● Encourage open communication
● Know the platforms
● Talk about online risks
● Monitor transactions
● Use security tools such as monitoring software or parental controls
And for young people themselves:
● Be wary of strangers on the internet who ask for photos or money.
● Don’t respond to bullying. Talk to your parents, teacher, or an adult.
● Save evidence: screenshots, usernames, and URLs.
● Block, unfriend, and report any incidents.
● If you feel very unsafe, call the police on 111.
