Alexandria High School Student Steps Up to Shield Seniors from Online Scams

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Wesley Driscoll poses with Lemonaide founder Vanessa Engelhardt and former FBI agent John Schwartz. (Courtesy photo)

Alexandria, VA – High schooler Wesley Driscoll first took an interest in online scams when he was the target of one.

“A couple of years ago, I got a phone call that was a scam, and I kept them on for six hours,” Driscoll said. “They were saying keys to press on the computer, and I would pretend I heard a different letter, and so it drove them nuts.”

Now, Driscoll’s organization, Silver Guard Seniors, is running a free July 26 scam-prevention event. The program is set to start at 1 p.m. at 2034 Eisenhower Avenue, the site of partner business Cowo & Créche.

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The event will be held in collaboration with the Center for Combating Elder Financial Abuse and Lemonaide, an organization dedicated to educating the public about elder financial abuse. Former FBI agent John Schwartz and Vanessa Engelhardt will attend and represent these respective groups.

The event mainly aims to equip elderly citizens with resources to recognize and combat scams.

Driscoll’s mother, Elizabeth Seltzer, mentioned that many may recognize elderly-targeted scams from movies like Jason Statham’s 2024 revenge flick “The Beekeeper,” but notes that real-life scams often play out similarly to how they do in Hollywood.

“John [Schwartz] will go into some real-life stories that happen here, and it’s really sad,” Seltzer said. “People lose their whole life savings.”

She added that this can have life-threatening consequences to some.

Another detail which Seltzer noted is that this type of crime is often a private affair.

“The victim is so embarrassed, they often don’t tell family members, they don’t tell friends,” Seltzer said.

Driscoll wants event attendees to be aware of the wide range of scam types that exist, including catfishing-esque romance scams and refund scams, which often involve fraudulent emails.

In the meantime leading up to the event, Driscoll is working on helpful media to raise awareness of these issues. This past June, he collaborated with Schwartz and Engelhardt to create an Elder Abuse Awareness Day video skit, in which they reenacted a romance scam.

“If we can teach these people about what it looks like, I’ve noticed that they tell their family members and so on, and the information just gets passed on,” Driscoll said. “And I think that has a greater impact.”