Consumer Protection Tuesday: How to Talk to Your Kids About Staying Safe Online
Tl;dr: Kids spend more time than ever connecting through games, social media, messaging apps, and online communities. Scammers know this. Some may target young people with extortion scams, while others try to recruit them into cybercrime with promises of money, status, or belonging. Parents and caregivers can help by understanding how these schemes start, recognizing warning signs, and making online safety an ongoing family conversation.
This post is part of a weekly Tuesday series at Coinbase about the latest consumer protection and security measures for crypto owners.
At Coinbase, we’re on a mission to help update the financial system to make it safer and more secure. While under 1% of blockchain transactions are used for illicit activity, and cash remains the preferred medium for illegal transactions, crypto security is always a top priority. Coinbase maintains a robust compliance program, which includes Know Your Customer (KYC) checks, sanctions screenings, suspicious activity reporting, and strong law enforcement partnerships to detect and prevent illicit activity on our platform.
Online Safety Starts With Understanding the Risks
For young people, online communities are often an extension of everyday life. They play games with friends, join groups around shared interests, communicate through social media, and meet new people from around the world.
Most of these interactions are harmless, but criminals can enter these same spaces looking for young people to exploit.
They may pose as another teenager, gamer, romantic interest, or online friend. And they don't always start by asking for money. Instead, they may spend time building trust and learning what matters to their target.
From there, the relationship can take different directions. Some criminals use personal information or intimate images to extort young people for money. Others offer money, status, or belonging to persuade them into joining crime rings.
New technology can make the challenge even harder. AI tools make impersonation and fraud easier to execute, while readily available fraud kits lower the barrier to enacting your own online scams.
Understanding how these schemes develop, and talking about them before something happens, can help young people recognize when an online interaction is heading in the wrong direction.
When an Online Friendship Turns Into Extortion
Financial sextortion can start with an ordinary conversation.
A criminal may pretend to be another young person and establish a friendship or romantic connection before asking for an intimate photo or video. Once they receive it, the conversation changes.
The criminal threatens to send it to friends, relatives, classmates, or followers if not paid through payment apps, gift cards, wire transfers, or cryptocurrency.
Even worse, paying doesn't guarantee the threat will end. The criminal may simply demand more.
The Lesson: If someone threatens or blackmails your child online, make sure they know to come to you immediately. Don't pay. Preserve the evidence, report the account, and contact law enforcement when appropriate.
Parents can make that conversation easier before a crisis occurs. Tell your kids clearly: “If something goes wrong online, you can always come to me for help.”
When Criminals Offer Easy Money
Online criminal groups often target young people interested in gaming, coding, crypto, or technology, offering money, digital assets, status, access to tools, or membership in an exclusive online group.
The first task might seem small:
They ask the young person to move money, provide account access, gather information, or perform another “favor.”
They claim the activity is harmless or that they're only targeting wealthy people or large companies.
Small tasks lead to more serious fraud or other criminal activity.
This “Robin Hood” mentality can make theft or fraud seem less serious than it is, and once a young person participates, criminals may have additional leverage to keep them involved.
The Lesson: Easy money for secretive online activity is a major red flag. Moving money for strangers, stealing credentials, impersonating people, or accessing accounts without permission can have serious consequences.
Five Conversations to Have With Your Kids
You don't need to understand every game, app, or platform your kids use. Instead, make a few simple questions part of everyday conversation.
“Who do you talk to online?” Remind kids that people aren't always who they claim to be.
“What would you do if someone threatened you?” Don't pay or negotiate. Stop communicating, save the evidence, and tell a trusted adult.
“Has anyone offered you money?” Never move money, share account access, or complete secretive online tasks for strangers.
“What information should stay private?” Passwords, authentication codes, wallet recovery phrases, financial information, location, and other sensitive details should stay protected.
“How do you know when to leave a conversation?” Threats, secrecy, sexual requests, money demands, and illegal favors are all reasons to stop engaging.
Always remember: Criminals can use urgency, secrecy, embarrassment, and fear to isolate their targets. Talk to someone you trust before taking any action.
Keep the Conversation Going
Smaller, regular conversations are often more effective than one big one.
Ask your kids what they're playing. Have them explain a new app or online community. Talk about scams when you encounter them. Ask what they would do if someone threatened them or offered them money for an online task.
Most importantly, make it clear that asking for help won't make a bad situation worse.
Young people may be highly comfortable with technology, but criminals aren't exploiting technology alone. They're exploiting friendship, fear, embarrassment, curiosity, ambition, and the desire to belong.
If something feels wrong online, stop and talk to someone you trust before taking any action.
Education and open communication can help young people enjoy the opportunities of the online world while making it harder for criminals to turn them into victims.
