How to Educate Parents in Malaysia About Online Scams
How to Educate Parents in Malaysia About Online Scams Educating parents in Malaysia about online scams is one of those uncomfortable conversations we keep postponing — right until it’s too late. We assume our parents are “old enough to know better,” while scammers assume the opposite. Sadly, scammers are winning. For many Malaysian parents, smartphones arrived late in life. They skipped the era of dodgy emails and Nigerian princes and jumped straight into WhatsApp, Facebook, online banking, and e-wallets — without the digital street smarts younger users picked up the hard way. To them, a message that looks official feels official. A caller who sounds confident must be legitimate. Authority is respected. Instructions are followed. That cultural respect is exactly what scammers exploit. Telling parents “just don’t click” is useless. It sounds dismissive and arrogant, and it shuts the conversation down. Education must start with empathy, not embarrassment. When parents fe...
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