We all know someone who has been scammed or has been contacted by a scammer: a mom, a grandpa, a friend, an elderly neighbor down the street. Nowadays, our community is bombarded with unsolicited digital strangers trying to trick us into giving away our personal information and our hard-earned money. Fourteen-year-old Cadette Girl Scout, Sybella Wasson, realized this and decided to make scam awareness the topic of her Girl Scout Silver Award, one of the highest awards in Girl Scouts.
“I am a fan of Mark Rober and I have watched his videos on scammers. I realized that a lot of people in my community were getting scammed, such as family members, friends, and people at my church. This made me mad, so I thought I should do some research on this and spread awareness about scams,” says Sybella. After getting full approval to work on her Silver Award, Sybella started listening to stories about people in her community who have been scammed and researched how scams work.
“Through my research, I found out that people who fell for scams were mostly those who did not know about them and how they work. So I thought to myself: one way to defeat scammers is to spread awareness!”
In addition to her plan on presenting her findings, Sybella came up with a tool to help people save themselves from scams called SAVE, which stands for STOP, ASK, VERIFY, and EXIT. People who are contacted by a potential scammer, or digital stranger, as Sybella likes to refer to them, can use the SAVE tool to think through the situation.
She suggests that people:
STOP – Take a breath and become aware of the situation.
ASK – Ask yourself if you are in control of the situation. Look for red flags, such as aggressiveness, prompting secrecy, urgency, and requiring disclosure of personal information.
VERIFY – Verify that this person is who they say they are. If you cannot confidently verify the caller, have a trusted person you can call to help you decide if the situation is a scam or real.
EXIT – Finally, exit the situation. Hang up. Delete the email. Do not engage.
Sybella also encourages people to identify a trusted person to call, in case you can’t decide if something is a scam or real.
“Based on my research, scammers often tell people to not tell anyone about what they are doing. So, I suggest that people find a trusted person to call if they are contacted by a digital stranger and don’t feel safe.”
Sybella plans to distribute magnets and stickers that people can use to help them remember the SAVE tool, as well as have a place to write down their trusted person. In addition to stickers and magnets, Sybella made a video to help people walk through the SAVE tool.
If you would like to help support Sybella in her Silver Award or learn more about scams and the SAVE tool, she will be presenting on Sunday, September 8th, at 1pm at First Baptist Church Grass Valley at 1866 Ridge Rd. (across the street from Nevada Union High School).
“I hope that the members of my community, especially the elderly, will become more aware of digital strangers. I hope that my presentation will help people and that my SAVE tool will help someone save a couple thousands of dollars.”