THE CONVERSATION GUIDE
That is the single clearest finding in our study. Growing up with a phone builds fluency — where the buttons are, how fast to scroll, which app does what. It does not build the instinct that stops a payment. That instinct is usually bought the hard way, once, for about forty euro.
of teens said they would feel too embarrassed to tell a parent straight away.
of parents assume their teen would come to them within the hour.
of families have never agreed what to do in the first ten minutes.
Figures to be completed from the Bancontact study.
They have used these apps since primary school, so nothing inside them feels risky. Fraud is designed to borrow exactly that feeling — the same layout, the same fonts, the same tone as everything else in the feed.
A limited drop, a countdown, three friends already in. Paying is now two taps, so the gap that used to sit between wanting something and buying it — walking to a shop, asking someone — has gone.
Most adults learned this by losing forty euro once and never forgetting it. A fourteen-year-old has not had that lesson, and there is no honest way to have it in advance. Which is what this page is trying to shortcut.
Today’s fraud lives in game stores, resale DMs and sponsored posts, in their slang, at their speed. It looks nothing like the badly spelled emails you were warned about, so the warnings you grew up with do not transfer.
ORDERING SOMETHING TOGETHER
INSTEAD OF SAYING
“Don’t buy from sites like that.”
TRY ASKING
“How do you normally check a shop is real before you pay?”
BUYING A GAME PASS
INSTEAD OF SAYING
“You spend far too much money on that game.”
TRY ASKING
“Show me how you actually buy it — I genuinely don’t know how it works.”
A TREND ON SOCIAL MEDIA
INSTEAD OF SAYING
“That is obviously a scam, surely you can see that.”
TRY ASKING
“Has anyone in your year ever got caught by one of these?”
AFTER SOMETHING WENT WRONG
INSTEAD OF SAYING
“Why on earth did you click on that?”
TRY ASKING
“Right. What do we need to do first?”
WHAT WE AGREED
Turn on dual approval
Ask your bank to add a second signature or a parent approval step, so anything above an agreed amount needs two people. Most banks offer this on a youth account.
Name the safe payment methods
Say out loud which card and which app are fine, and that bank transfers to strangers, gift-card codes and paying through someone else’s account are not. Vague rules get reinterpreted.
Pick a limit together
A daily or per-payment ceiling your teen helped choose is a limit they will defend. One imposed on them is a limit they will route around.
The no-shame rule
Telling you within the hour never costs them the phone, the account or pocket money. Commit to that before you need it — the hour you save is usually the difference between a refund and a write-off.
Agree the first phone call
Card Stop, 078 170 170. Save it in both phones now, under a name you would actually look for at eleven at night. Then the bank, then the report.
Five minutes, once a term
Look through recent payments together, out of curiosity rather than suspicion. Regular and boring beats a surprise inspection after something has already gone wrong.
Write it down and put it somewhere ordinary — the fridge, a shared note. An agreement you can point at later is worth far more than one you both half remember.
Card Stop · 078 170 170
Block a lost, stolen or misused card. Open 24 hours a day, every day.
Bancontact app settings
Payment limits, notifications, and freezing a card yourself in a couple of taps.
Bancontact security tips
The everyday habits that keep payments and personal details safe, for the whole family.
Safeonweb
Report phishing and see the scams currently going around in Belgium. Run by the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium.