Before it happens

Most advice about scams assumes you'll have a clear head when one arrives.

You won't. That's the point of them.

The calls that take the most money aren't clever. They're frightening. A grandchild in a cell. A child taken. A warrant with your name on it. Your savings "already being drained." Fear is the product, and it works on careful people, at any age, with any education.

Two things changed recently, and both make the old advice weaker:

• A voice is no longer proof. Software can copy a person's voice from a short clip posted online. "It sounded just like her" means nothing now.
• They know to keep you on the line. The instruction is always some version of stay on the phone and don't tell anyone. That's what stops you doing the one thing that would end it.

So the checks that matter are the ones you set up when nobody is frightened. They take one evening, once. After that they work on your worst night, when you can't think straight, because you already decided.

1. A code word. Four minutes.

One word your family uses to prove it's really them. Not a birthday. Not the dog's name if the dog is on Facebook. Something from your shared life that was never posted anywhere.

Set it out loud at a meal, with the grandchildren there. Then, when a frightened voice calls, you ask for the word.

A cloned voice can't produce a word that was never said on the internet.

It isn't magic. A word can be told to the wrong person, or guessed if you pick something other relatives know. Treat it as the first check, not the only one. If the word doesn't come, or you can't remember it, hang up and call the person back on the number you've always used.

2. The callback promise. One sentence.

The reason people don't hang up is that it feels rude, or disloyal, or like they're calling their own grandson a liar.

So take that away in advance. Say this to each other, out loud, now:

"If I ever call you in trouble, hang up and call me back on my own number. I won't be hurt. I'll be glad."

Now hanging up isn't an accusation. It's the family rule, agreed by everyone, including the person who might one day be impersonated.

3. One agreement about money. Two minutes.

Decide, together, what nobody in this family will ever do. Write it down:

• Nobody here asks for gift cards. Not ever, for any reason.
• Nobody here asks for a wire transfer, cash by courier, or a cash deposit into a machine.
• Nobody here asks you to keep money news secret from the rest of the family.

That list is worth more than it looks. In the moment you don't have to work out whether the story is true. You only have to notice that the request is on the list, and the list was written when everyone was calm.

4. Fewer seconds of your voice. Ten minutes.

You don't have to disappear from the internet. Just make the raw material thinner:

• Change your voicemail greeting to the phone's default, so it doesn't answer in your own voice.
• Set family videos and photos to friends only, especially the grandchildren's.
• Don't post travel plans while you're away. "We're in Portugal until the 8th" tells somebody exactly when your family can't reach you quickly.

5. Your phone's own protection. Ten minutes.

Your phone can hold back calls from numbers it doesn't know, before it ever rings, and on most phones that's off until somebody switches it on. It's free, and it's the only protection here that needs nothing from you in the moment.

The exact taps, for iPhone, Samsung, Pixel and your phone company.

6. Two things at the bank. Twenty minutes, once.

• Name a trusted contact on your accounts. It gives them no control and no way to move your money. It means the bank has somebody to call if they see something alarming.
• Freeze your credit at all three bureaus. It's free, it's reversible, and it stops somebody opening an account in your name. Do it as a family errand so it feels like a shared chore rather than an intervention.

The family page has the words to use for both, if you're the one raising it with a parent.

Put it where the phone is

Every one of these fails if it lives only in somebody's memory. Print the one-page sheet, write your own code word on it in pen, and put it where you actually answer the phone.

Print the sheet for the refrigerator

If it's happening right now

Stop reading and start here. This page is for a calm afternoon, not for the call itself.

And if you want to know what the call will sound like before you ever get one, read how the call goes. Recognizing the script while it's running is the other half of this.

There's one more thing worth ten minutes at the same kitchen table: the pause button, a single rehearsed way to end a call you can't bring yourself to hang up on.