Adults 65 and older lose more money to email fraud than any other age group. In 2023, the FBI reported $3.4 billion in elder fraud losses — and a large proportion of those attacks began with a single email. If one of your parents uses email, this guide will walk you through every step of setting up real protection: what to configure, what to explain to them, and what to watch for month to month.
Why This Matters Now
Seniors are disproportionately targeted for a combination of reasons that have nothing to do with intelligence or education. They tend to be more trusting of authority — government agencies, healthcare providers, financial institutions — precisely the identities that attackers impersonate most often. They are more likely to be managing financial accounts and benefit programs online. And they are statistically less likely to recognize modern threat patterns, because those patterns were designed to be unrecognizable.
Standard spam filters were built to stop bulk commercial mail, not the personalized, single-sender fraud emails that elder scammers send. A well-crafted Medicare, IRS, or bank impersonation email routinely clears every technical filter and arrives in the primary inbox looking indistinguishable from the real thing.
The real problem
Telling a senior “just don't click suspicious links” is not a protection strategy. The most dangerous attacks are specifically crafted to not look suspicious. The real solution is defense-in-depth that works without requiring the user to recognize threats.
What to Configure: Step by Step
The following eight steps take approximately 15 minutes to complete. You can do most of them remotely if your parent shares their login credentials with you, or in person on your next visit.
- 01
Connect their Gmail or Outlook to Glance
In the Glance dashboard, select Add Protected Account and follow the OAuth flow for their email provider. This grants Glance read access to incoming mail metadata — it never stores or reads message bodies.
- 02
Set yourself as a gatekeeper
Navigate to Circle of Trust and add your own email address as a gatekeeper for their account. You will now receive approval requests for emails from unknown senders before those emails reach your parent.
- 03
Set the auto-block threshold to 70
The default threshold is 80 — emails scoring above this are automatically blocked. For elderly parents, lower it to 70. The slightly more aggressive setting reduces the number of borderline emails that make it to the review queue.
- 04
Enable Tier 4 AI deep scan
In threat detection settings, enable AI deep scan for all grey-area emails (those scoring between 20 and 70). This adds semantic analysis that specifically detects urgency manipulation, government impersonation, and financial pressure language.
- 05
Set breach alerts to your email
Enable breach notifications and route them to your address, not your parent's. If their email address appears in a data breach, you will be notified so you can take action — without alarming them unnecessarily.
- 06
Add their bank, Medicare, and insurance providers to the allowlist
Go to the allowlist and add the exact sending domains for their bank, Medicare, insurance providers, and any regular subscription services they use. This ensures those emails are never held for review.
- 07
Enable weekly threat digest to your email
Turn on the weekly summary report and route it to yourself. This gives you a one-email overview of what was blocked, what was approved, and any new threat patterns detected on their account — without requiring them to log in.
- 08
Walk them through the unknown sender notification once
The only thing your parent may notice is an occasional delay on emails from new senders while you review them. Have one brief conversation: "If you're expecting something from someone new and it doesn't arrive right away, let me know and I'll check." That's the entire user-facing experience.
What to say to your parent
Keep the explanation simple: “I installed something that blocks spam automatically. If you get an email from someone new, I might check it first before it comes through. It's completely normal — I just want to make sure nothing sketchy gets through.” That is all they need to know. Glance handles the rest invisibly.
Common Elder Scam Patterns to Watch For
Even with Glance running, understanding the most common patterns helps you make faster gatekeeper decisions when reviewing flagged emails:
Medicare and Medicaid billing fraud
Emails claiming your parent owes a copay, needs to verify coverage, or is eligible for a new benefit. Always impersonate official CMS or Medicare branding.
IRS threat scams
Emails threatening arrest, license suspension, or legal action unless a tax debt is paid immediately — often requesting gift cards or wire transfers as payment method.
Grandparent scams
The attacker impersonates a grandchild in crisis — stranded, arrested, or in the hospital — and requests emergency funds. These emails often arrive after data broker research reveals the grandchild's name.
Utility shutoff threats
Urgent notices claiming electricity or water service will be disconnected within hours unless payment is made immediately via a non-reversible method.
Lottery and prize fraud
Congratulatory emails claiming your parent has won a prize and must pay a processing fee or provide bank details to receive their winnings.
Romance scam lead-in emails
Initial contact from an unknown sender expressing interest or a supposed mutual connection. These often begin as seemingly innocent emails and build trust over weeks before any financial request is made.
When to Check In
Once Glance is set up, ongoing maintenance is minimal. Here is a schedule that keeps protection current without requiring significant time investment:
Monthly
- Review the blocked sender list — confirm no legitimate senders were incorrectly quarantined
- Scan the gatekeeper approval history for any unusual patterns
Quarterly
- Review the full gatekeeper approval history and confirm all approved senders are genuinely known
- Check if any new regular contacts (new doctor, insurance change) should be added to the allowlist
Annually
- Verify that bank, Medicare, and insurance allowlist entries still use the correct sending domains — these change after acquisitions and rebranding
- Update your own gatekeeper contact details if your email address has changed
Frequently Asked Questions
My parent isn't tech-savvy. Can they use this themselves?
They don't need to. Once you set up Glance and add yourself as a gatekeeper, you receive the approval requests. Your parent's inbox stays clean without them needing to do anything. From their perspective, email works exactly as it always has — except scam emails stop arriving.
Will Glance read my parent's private emails?
No. Glance uses a zero-persistence architecture — it never stores email content. Bodies are processed in memory during scoring, then discarded. Gatekeepers only see sender name, domain, subject line, and threat score — never the message body. Your parent's privacy is preserved by design, not policy.
What if my parent doesn't want help?
Frame it as installing something that blocks spam, not as monitoring their email. Glance is passive protection — it does not change how email works from their perspective. Your parent sends and receives email exactly as before. The only visible change is that occasional emails from new senders may be briefly delayed while you review them.
My parent uses AOL or Yahoo. Does Glance work?
Gmail and Outlook are the primary supported accounts. Yahoo and AOL OAuth is available in beta. Check the connected accounts settings in the Glance dashboard for current provider support.
Set Up Protection for Your Parent Today
Glance takes 15 minutes to configure and runs silently in the background. Free to start, no credit card required.