About KindWatch

My name is June Kim. I'm a software engineer in Vancouver, Canada — previously at Google and Loom. My dad, Sungkwon, is a retired professor in his 70s who lives alone in South Korea.

I built KindWatch because I didn't build it soon enough.

What happened to my dad

My dad spent his career teaching. He's sharp, well-read, and fiercely independent. He's the kind of person you'd never imagine falling for a scam.

But that's exactly who scammers target.

Over the course of several weeks, my dad was drawn into what's called a "pig butchering" scam — a long-con scheme where fraudsters build trust slowly, then convince their victim to pour money into a fake crypto investment. The returns look real. The platform looks real. By the time my dad called to tell me what happened, his life savings were gone — sent to a crypto wallet he'll never recover.

I'll never forget that phone call. The shame in his voice. He kept apologizing — to me — as if he'd done something wrong. A man who spent decades educating others, apologizing to his son for being deceived by professionals whose entire job is deception.

We don't talk as often as I'd like. The 16-hour time difference between Vancouver and Korea makes it hard. If we'd been talking every day, maybe I'd have noticed something — a mention of a new "friend," unusual excitement about an "investment." But I didn't. And by the time I found out, it was over.

The problem no one is solving

After it happened, I did what engineers do: I researched. The FBI reports $4.9 billion stolen from adults over 60 in a single year. Pig butchering alone accounts for billions more globally. The scams are run by organized criminal operations. The victims are overwhelmingly people like my dad — educated, independent, living alone.

I looked for tools that could have prevented it. Call blocking apps? My dad would've disabled them — and the scammers contacted him through messaging, not cold calls. Daily check-in apps? He would have pressed "I'm okay" every morning while actively being scammed. He thought he was okay. That's the whole problem.

Nothing I found could detect what actually happened: a slow change in communication patterns over weeks. More messages to an unknown contact. Longer phone calls at odd hours. Financial app usage that didn't match his routine. All signals that were there — on his phone — if only someone had been watching.

What I built

KindWatch runs quietly on your parent's phone. It doesn't block anything. It doesn't require your parent to press buttons or check in. It just listens to what's already happening — phone usage, call patterns, notification activity — and uses AI to spot the warning signs that a human would miss.

Every time your parent unlocks their phone, checks the weather, or calls a friend, that's a signal they're okay. If their phone sits untouched all morning, that's a signal too. And if they start having long, frequent calls with a new number over several weeks? That's the signal I wish I'd had.

Each week, KindWatch sends you a plain-English report of what happened on your parent's phone. Not a surveillance log — a summary. Think of it as the conversation you'd have with a neighbor who checks in on your parent: "Your dad seems fine this week. He's been active, talking to his usual contacts. Nothing unusual."

The first version is running on my dad's phone right now. It can't undo what happened. But it means next time, I'll know.

Why I'm sharing it

My dad is one of 147,000 elder fraud victims reported to the FBI in 2024 alone — a 46% increase from the year before. Together, they lost $4.9 billion. The average victim lost $83,000. Some lost over $2 million. And those are just the ones who reported it. Most don't.

Investment scams — the category that includes pig butchering — are the deadliest, accounting for $1.8 billion in losses among seniors last year. Pig butchering revenue globally grew 40% year-over-year, with the number of victims rising by 210%. These aren't random phone calls anymore. They're sophisticated, weeks-long operations run by organized crime.

Over 16 million Americans aged 65+ live alone. Millions more have parents overseas, across the country, or just far enough away that daily visits aren't possible. Every one of them is a potential target. And the problem is getting worse every single year.

I can't get my dad's savings back. But if KindWatch can catch even one scam in progress — flag the pattern before the money is gone — then building this was worth it. I want to prevent as many families as possible from getting the call I got.

What this blog is

The articles on this site come from hundreds of hours of research into FBI fraud reports, scam playbooks, and conversations with families in caregiver communities. Every statistic is sourced. Every recommendation comes from published research or lived experience.

I write for adult children like me — people who can't be there every day but refuse to do nothing.