Suppose you get a frantic call from your aunt, Rose. She tells you that she’s been contacted by IRS collection officers and she owes them money. While on the phone with her, the “IRS” coached Aunt Rose on how to pay, which included prompting her to log in to her bank account and wire them money, which she did. Aunt Rose has just been scammed — or more accurately, coached.
Also called coercion or social engineering with user interaction, coaching is when fraudsters contact users like Aunt Rose and convince them to perform actions on the fraudster’s behalf. Users are then coached by the fraudsters to make a money transfer to a new payee (i.e., the bad actor). More worrisome is that these schemes are targeted to older folks, leading to generalized elder abuse.