“Name someone you trust” stopped being useful advice the day I realized I didn't have an obvious someone.

From the founder

I am not married. I don't have an adult child standing by to watch my accounts. When the standard financial-safety guidance says “just appoint a power of attorney,” it assumes a person I'd have to go find — and hand the power to withdraw my money, sell my property, and add themselves to my accounts. That is not protection. That is a bigger risk with a nicer name.

So I did the opposite. I built a system out of watchers who cannot touch a dime. People who get told, not people who get access. Settings my own bank and brokerage already offer, which I turned on myself. A short list of the scams actually aimed at women my age, and the one move that defeats each one.

That system is the Watchword Kit. It is not a service. I never see your accounts, I never touch your money, and there is nothing to link. You do the setup, at your own institutions, and you keep every bit of control.

Here is the honest part up front: this reduces your risk. It does not erase it. No kit does, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something worse than this. What it does is close the specific doors that a stranger on the phone is counting on being open.

Why the name

A watchword was, historically, the password shared only with the people you trusted — so a sentry could prove a friend was really a friend, and not an impostor, in the dark. It was never secrecy for its own sake. It was a way to prove who's really who, between people who'd already agreed on the proof.

I kept coming back to that idea while I was building the Circle-of-Three — the part of the kit where you name three people who'd help you think, not manage your money. Three phone numbers solve the “who do I call” problem. They don't solve the newer one: a stranger can now clone a familiar voice from a few seconds of audio pulled off social media. Hearing the right voice is no longer proof it's really them. A phone number proves someone dialed it. It doesn't prove who's talking.

So the Circle-of-Three carries a watchword — one word, agreed on ahead of time, that only you and each of your three know. Say it correctly, and you've proven it's really you. Can't produce it, and something's wrong. It's the oldest trick there is, repurposed for the newest scam. That's the whole brand, really: a word you keep with the people you chose, worth nothing to anyone else, that proves it's really you when it matters.

Why the kit is free

The earlier version of this charged for the assembled kit. I killed that. Every setting and script in here is built from public rules that already exist for free at your own bank and brokerage — a paywall would have had nothing to protect, because a free checklist from AARP or FINRA could copy it overnight. So the whole kit reads free, right here, no signup required. I earn instead from the printed workbook, for people who'd rather fill it in by hand or give it as a gift, and from an optional yearly refresh of the scam deck. Neither is required to use any part of this.

You built a life that answers to no one. This is how you defend it.

The numbers behind the kit, and where they come from

Everything Watchword claims traces to a public source — mostly the FBI, FINRA, FinCEN, the Census Bureau, and peer-reviewed research. A few that shaped the design:

Start with the free guide