After a scam, people contact a bank more often than any official body. The Stop Scams Alliance and Gallup survey of 5,173 adults in the United States, reported by the Associated Press on 25 June 2026, found that among people scammed in 2025, 55 per cent contacted their bank, credit union or another financial institution, 18 per cent contacted state or local law enforcement, and 13 per cent contacted federal law enforcement or the Federal Trade Commission. Of those scammed, 58 per cent were uncertain where to report, and 75 per cent did not report because they thought it would make no difference to getting their money back.
This guide sets out why a free, printable and large-print guide earns a place in a safer online world for all, and what such a guide has to contain.
Where connection stands
The International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations agency for digital technologies, reported in November 2025 that about 6 billion people were online in 2025, up from 5.8 billion in 2024, and that about 2.2 billion were not. Of the people offline, 96 per cent live in low- and middle-income countries. Those figures describe connection, and the organisations that serve those communities work in their own languages with their own methods. A guide that can be printed, photocopied and read aloud works wherever a connection is slow, costly or shared.
Why print, and why large print
A printed page reaches three situations that a link does not. In some households one phone is shared, and the person holding it is not always the person who receives the message. Where data is costly or slow, a 171-page file is a long download, and a printed copy is read by many hands. And some people are not online at all, and can still be reached by a page from a relative, a library or a clinic.
Large print widens the reach again. The UK Association for Accessible Formats sets 16-point type as the minimum for large print, with 18-point recommended, and 12-point as the minimum for clear print, with 14-point recommended (guidance G003, 2024). Older readers appear prominently in fraud statistics: the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported in April 2026 that people aged 60 and over in the United States made one in five complaints in 2025 and reported US$7.7 billion in losses, 37 per cent of the money reported lost. A guide set at 16-point type meets that large-print minimum.
What a guide has to do
A printed guide cannot check a message for you, and it does not pretend to. It can give a reader a shape to recognise. Most scams, whatever the disguise, follow a small number of steps: someone pretends to be a person or organisation you trust, brings a problem or a prize, applies pressure, asks for secrecy, and asks for money in a form that is hard to get back. A reader who knows those steps can recognise a scam that was invented after the guide was printed.
A guide also has to say what to do first when something has already gone wrong. The first call is to the bank, on the number printed on the card and never a number from the message. Where to report can follow within the hour. A guide that puts that call on a single page, in large type, has earned its place beside the telephone.
The invitation
UtilForge.org, a registered 2026 Champion of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, has published How to Become Safer Online in that spirit: a 171-page large-print guide to the five steps most scams follow, the checks to use in the pause, and the first phone call to make, for families, libraries and educators. It is free at utilforge.org/book and published under a Creative Commons licence (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0), so any library, care home, college, community group or employer may print it, photocopy it and hand it out, whole and unchanged, without asking.
Others offer free materials this October. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Cybersecurity Alliance lead Cybersecurity Awareness Month in the United States, and the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity coordinates European Cybersecurity Month. The Internet Society launched its Online Trust and Safety Hub on 30 September 2026, with a free downloadable Scam Strong training curriculum of slides for in-person workshops.
A safer online world is built one conversation at a time, and a page set in 16-point type is something both people in that conversation can hold.
Sources (checked 26 October 2026)
- Stop Scams Alliance and Gallup survey, reported by the Associated Press, 25 June 2026 (as carried by Claims Journal, 26 June 2026): https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2026/06/26/338490.htm
- International Telecommunication Union, Facts and Figures 2025 (November 2025), summary by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs: https://social.desa.un.org/world-summit-2025/blog/progress-and-gaps-key-findings-from-itus-facts-and-figures-2025
- UK Association for Accessible Formats, Creating clear print and large print documents (G003, version 4, 2024): https://www.ukaaf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/G003-UKAAF-Creating-clear-print-and-large-print-documents-v4.pdf
- Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internet Crime Report 2025 (April 2026): https://www.ic3.gov
- Internet Society, Online Trust and Safety Hub, 30 September 2026: https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2026/09/a-safer-internet-starts-with-taking-action-introducing-the-online-trust-and-safety-hub/
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