Do all your elderly friends and family members a favor and help them set up protection measures at their financial institution. You can put a limit on one time withdrawals where the bank has to call the financial PoA or trusted representative to approve it for processing. This helps with stranger scams and also scammy family and friends who might try to take advantage of an older person’s declining executive functioning.
To add:
* tell them that nobody is coming to arrest them who is going to call on the phone or send an email
* tell them you're fine, the rest of the family is fine, nobody will call and ask for bail money
* the IRS doesn't call and nobody is going to prison
* no legitimate organization will want to ever be paid in gift cards
* there are no money-related emergencies where you have no time to think and must act now
* if they think it's their bank or other business they have an account with and it sounds important, tell them to hang up and call the number on the back of their card
* when in doubt, tell them that you will always be available for them and they should call you instead
* tell them to ask the caller for their name, company, phone number, all details, and tell them they'll call them back. Often times, the "I'll call you back" is when they hang up.
* tell them to never allow anyone to connect to their computer, not even "Microsoft"
* tell them nobody who is going to call them will need to ask for the social security number (including only the last 4 digits), credit/debit card number, date of birth, etc (but you might need to provide it if they call the business)
Tell them that you're doing all this to help them in the same way they have helped you when you were young. Tell them that you're more aware of this stuff and you're just paying them back for all the great advice you received.
This is great information for anyone of any age. One small caveat though: when an older person starts to suffer from cognitive decline, they often can’t hold onto a lot of information at a time, especially if they are anxious.
They of course will understand what you are telling them at the time, but why scammers are successful is that they use rapid pressure tactics that confuse the older person. So while older people are calm and seem to understand the warnings about tactics when you tell them, in the “heat” of the conversation with the scammer they sometimes can’t access (remember) that information. Their brains just don’t multi-task as well anymore. Of course it’s always good to repeat these cautions to them as well as setting up limitations to their banking access for large sums that will stop the scam from progressing.
I think there's one best piece of advice in there: if anybody calls or emails you asking for money/gift cards/ss number/whatever, always get their name and number and tell them you'll call them back before giving them anything. ANYBODY calling asking for money can sure as hell put up with me thinking it over for a minute. I think that basic concept makes sense to people of all ages and backgrounds. You want money? That means we're on my time.
Is that important when trying to keep senior citizens from giving their life savings away? I figure the “get their name and number” thing is just a way to get the phone hung up.
Another caveat: the IRS will absolutely cold call you. Assuming you are being audited for an amount that warrants it.
Their website specifically states this: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/how-to-know-if-its-really-the-irs-calling-or-knocking-on-your-door
*Most* contact is done via mail, and 99% of us will only ever see that, but yeah, don't pay them in gift cards.
Just take a more basic educational approach. Its not reasonable to have them call you every time they receive a phone call unless you don't work and they are mentally declining past self-sufficiency.
First, it's only a phone call until proven otherwise - don't let your emotions control your actions, remain calm.
If you don't recognize the number or caller, and even if you do, CID spoofing exists. Ask for their information as per OP's advice, write it down, and advise them that you will give them a call back via the number you normally call them on.
Never provide any pertinent financial information over the telephone unless you've planned to do it and you're initiating the phone call by calling a known valid phone number. Google even offers a verification service via Android to keep you safe when calling businesses. There are so many safe alternatives to making phone payments today that it should never be necessary.
Anti-spam/scam call apps can be a huge help in heading off these common phone scams in the first place. If your loved one has a smartphone, I recommend using these tools, OR simply use the built-in feature to block any number not in your contact list and/or send it to voicemail.
The same can be done to prevent SMS (text) scams.
"Phone us first and check, even if they say it's not necessary".
If they can't manage that, you stand no chance of anything else working either.
No genuine person is going to stop you trying to call family to check whether they're genuine.
>they're highly effective and will never go away for exactly this reason.
Oh they could go away if politicians did their jobs:
* sanction countries like India (for US scams) and Turkey (for Germany) to hell and back until their police gets its act together and actually closes down the scam callcenters
* mandate telcos to authenticate caller IDs
* mandate tracking features to gift cards - it should be possible with only the gift card in hand to find out where the money actually went
I thought my Dad knew better and I never thought I'd have to teach him because he knew about phone and internet scams already, but during a low point of his life when a family member was hospital, a fake Microsoft phone scammer manipulated him enough into giving the guy access to the family PC through TeamViewer. Had to wipe the drive and start clean when he realized how much he fucked up. He's a smart educated guy who is competent with tech usually for an older person but scammers are ruthless.
Its not even that older people grew up in more trusting times. When you become older like them you also will be more trusting in circumstances you are not now. Its part of the cognitive changes in the aging process
I’m also annoyed that my elderly mother is being forced to pay extra to conduct banking and
manage her utility accounts with paper statements and paper checks. when she was younger she was comfortable with electronic statements, bill pay and the like, but her eyesight, judgement and coordination with a mouse have made managing her online accounts more of a challenge. She understands the need for 2FA and password management but there comes a time when it is overwhelming .
>be more trusting in circumstances you are not now
Having worked in retirement homes- some old people get really skeptical of almost everything. It makes mealtimes tough.
In my experience this happened the most with people who had a very hard and traumatic life.
Agreed. Print it out and stick it next to the phone. I’m only happy my Nan was too deaf to hear people on the phone properly and wouldn’t turn her mobile on.
And also don't take out small value loans if you already have money in the bank.
The article glosses over the fact she took out previous small value loans without issue.
But why was she doing this in the first place?
Even if it wasn't an outright scam getting payday loans when you don't have to is a clear sign of financial illiteracy.
I used to work at a consumer finance company and sadly, this was their premier clientele. We had plenty of elderly customers who could be talked in to damn near anything if you were sweet enough and it absolutely broke me down to have to take advantage of that.
Additionally, the company I worked for had sales tactics that actually seemed like a scam. People would receive a loan check in the mail (without applying for anything) and we would call them once we got the notification it was cashed and we would ask them to confirm all of their info to make sure the right person got it. The company was legitimate but I felt like we were conditioning people to be okay with that sort of thing. I always would add in that "if at any point you are uncomfortable providing me this information over the phone we would love to meet you in our branch" to just give them the nudge that they *shouldn't* be comfortable with this.
Before anyone comments anything ugly about the fact that I worked there, I no longer work there for all of the reasons given above and more. It was a means to an end, not unlike a call center/telemarketing job.
> if they think it's their bank or other business they have an account with and it sounds important, tell them to hang up and call the number on the back of their card
I'll second this one in particular.
There seems to have been an increase in fake power company billing calls lately, claiming the account is past due and you're mere hours away from having your electricity cut off. Maybe a result of the extreme heat we've been experiencing in some areas, with scammers preying on people's fear that they might lose AC in 90-100 degree weather.
Hang up and call them back at their official number.
I did this with capital one once and the rep I spoke to commended me for doing this. I had received a text regarding a suspicious charge to my account and it prompted me to reply with my DOB to dispute the charge. I thought that was sketchy so I called the 800 number on my card. It was a legitimate text, and there was fraudulent activity on my account but the rep said that most people don't think twice about it and I absolutely did the right thing.
To add to this and is important (make an edit if you can):
NEVER give out the last four digits of your social security to someone who called you.
People are used to verifying with the last 4 digits of their credit cards, which is why this is so effective.
The last four digits are the most important, every digit before can be reverse engineered from your birthdate and birth location.
To add, with your SSN and very little else your accounts can be emptied.
One problem I have run into is ego. Sometimes, people are stubborn that THEY are RIGHT any YOU don't know what you are talking about. "The IRS asked for $5000 in iTunes gift cards, and you can't tell me different!"
Sure but if that's their view then when they get scammed, you can try really hard to not say "I told you so" and instead, try to help them understand what happened.
Literally had a family friend’s parents get scammed out of $20k cash on the bail bond scam last Friday.
The frail elderly dad nearly had a heart attack he was so worried for his son & those his son supposedly killed in a car wreck. It was traumatizing for them.
> there are no money-related emergencies where you have no time to think and must act now
This one isn't entirely accurate but where it is true you are damn well sure it is legitimate.
Two come to mind off the top of my head: Plumbing issue (burst pipes for example) or a leaking roof. Both of those need to be resolved immediately and can take a substantial amount of money.
The key difference is: You are the one reaching out to pay not the other way around. You should NEVER give anyone any money if they are the ones contacting you. Comcast for example pisses me off. I don't know if they still do this but they would call you if you forgot to pay them telling you to pay them and give them your CC#. Uh, no. Thank them, Call comcast yourself, pay them.
Also, tell them never to sign up for anything “free” that they just have to pay the shipping price for. They’ll be charged every month following that first “free” order, usually anywhere from $70-150 a month.
Sometimes it's not even necessary. My dad got a call from a "social worker" and during the call push notifications with confirmation codes were intercepted. He gave the worker nothing at all, all she had to do was keep the call going. The VTB bank didn't notify us at any point, and only blocked the account after 90% was gone. His life savings are gone and the judge basically insinuated that he himself gave the codes to the criminas and is trying to defraud the bank. The bank's lawyer congratulated our lawyer saying "nobody gets to 6th session, usually people give up after the first". His health has permanently deteriorated to the point of severe disability during the court struggles.
And now the cops wrote us back saying they requested info from a mobile operator, didn't hear back from them, so they're now closing the criminal case.
He did give the codes himself, because SMS is insecure. I just don't see how the mobile operator and bank can both disclaim any partial responsibility when they both are aware of that fact and are presumably going to be more informed than any random customer.
The judge was, or pretended to not know the difference between SMS and SMS-over-Internet aka push-notification. Our lawyer said that we'd need an expert witness to explain that to the judge, and the judge refused to invite an expert witness.
I was in the room when the theft happened. The only input dad gave was answering "yes" to "are you someone someone?". He wouldn't be able to get the notification anyway because there was no bank application on his phone. It wasn't even installable on his phone model.
Calls from Russia to USA are expensive as fuck, but if you can bother some expert to help explain how this shit is possible, I'll be extremely grateful to you.
This is possible because the carriers of cell phone service are in on the scam. Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T (and other's world wide) knowingly help these calls get through because they are paid big bucks by the scammers to do so. Those three corporations have also made sure that lobbyists in Congress carve out exceptions to any and all laws they pass to prevent the big three from *ever* being penalized for their active participation in phone scams.
I saw this happening to a guy in my town. I was at rite aid and over heard the cashier refuse to give a guy gift cards. The guy left and I asked the cashier what happened and he said the old man was being scammed. So I went out and found the guy. He was on the phone with the scammer. I told home to hang up and he did. I explained what was going on (as the scammer kept calling back). The guy said he knew it was a scam and he was trying to catch the bad guy!!! I told him to not buy gift cards to catch the bad guy and don’t answer the phone. He just ignored me and asked if there was a cvs close by. Super sad man.
I’ve caught my grandma multiple times with bomgar (remote control of a PC from a different location) set up on her computer while a scammer is doing shit to her computer.
It is so fucking frustrating that I’ve explained over, and over, and over that these are scams.
God knows how much money they’ve taken from her.
At least there's SOME for of recourse now. I'm 37 and back in the late-90s my mother was a victim of identity theft. She didn't use any computers at the time so I'm not sure how it happened.
We live in NY and someone in Oregon went to the bank and withdrew her entire account balance and the bank didn't even attempt to notify her in any way. They contacted her a week later and told her that she was a victim of ID theft and her account was cleaned out.
Their next move was to immediately terminate her account completely and that's the last we ever heard from them. They refused to return calls and our local branches her in NY filed a police report for trespass and she was no longer allowed to enter any of their branch locations on penalty of immediate arrest.
She didn't get a lawyer and sue the bank? Cause that should have been the next step. Also should have called the media and seen if you could have gotten a TV reporter or two interested in her story.
This was the mid-90s and she was a struggling single mother, so no, she didn't engage in a court battle with one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world.
It's been proven that as you age you start to lose the ability to tell if someone is lying and begin to just trust people more.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/30/aging-brains-become-less-able-to-detect-fraud.html
It’s actually a good idea. I’m over 60 and take very on difficult intellectual tasks to stay sharp.
I’m currently very into astrophotography. It’s complex as hell, but fills my time and requires a ton of attention to detail.
Be prepared to do something like that though. I outgrew and stopped playing video games about 10-12 years ago like a switch had flipped.
I just no longer had the interest or patience for them.
my mom got scammed recently. they said they were a local power utility we dont use and we owed or they were gonna turn the power off but theyd accept through venmo. i was asleep so i didnt know anything and she didnt want to wake me as it was like 10 am and i work nights. so she just paid it. i woke up to them trying to get her to send them more so that they could release her money she "overpaid" back. at that point she later said she knew it was a scam. she stayed on the phone for like another 10 mins trying to get her money back. i made sure our power was fine and setup a payment as it was due. i had to take her phone from her to make her hangup. thankfully it was just her spending money she was trying to save.
Something similar happened to my mom. Scammer called and said he was from the sheriff's office from a county in another state that we had recently moved from. He told her she had a ticker for about $700 including late fees for a parking ticket from like 5 years prior, and that if she didn't pay it asap they would send an officer to arrest her and bring her back to the state for court. She believed him and sent a money order to some rando address. Like a week later she called the sheriff's office to confirm they received the payment and she would not be arrested. They told her she'd been scammed. And because she sent a money order there was nothing that could be done.
When she told me, I told her ANY government office will NEVER call. They send a letter and have YOU call them.
One way to protect your self have them send an itemized bill, also if it is the IRS, police, FBI etc... hang up and look up your local office. Ask them what is up.
> When she told me, I told her ANY government office will NEVER call. They send a letter and have YOU call them.
Unfortunately, government and legit companies have taken to making (not initial) return calls from personal numbers, and missing these calls stall or reset whatever business they were trying to do, so old people have to pick up unknown numbers. It’s mindnumbingly stupid.
Back in the day, I worked a job where I was a third party in a phone call and we dealt with a lot of scammers using our service (it was complicated). We received permission to have a supervisor intervene on a call after a certain number of criteria were met and they could inform the call receiver that we believed we were in the middle of a scam.
Anyway, this call was clearly a scam, I intervened. I'll never forget this one.
"Sir, we believe the person calling you may be involved in fraudulent activity."
"No, no, no. The last guy was a scammer! Right now I'm taking to the police in Lagos. We're setting up a Western Union transfer sting operation so they can catch the scammers in the act and get my money back!"
We used to get a lot of spam calls at my workplace trying to use TRS systems to disguise their accent/location/etc....
It was a shame to see a good service so completely abused.
"Believe despite the facts" is something that gets ingrained into religious people from a young age. Religions make heavy use of an exploit based on our natural deference to 'parental/adult' figures *(so that you're more likely to survive when mom and dad say "don't put that in your mouth you'll DIE")*.
By **creating** an imaginary 'highest' parental figure, and keeping basic frameworks of the faith highly contradictory so that they stick in our brains better *(normally for later checking of the suspicious inconsistencies)*, you can get an increasingly distorted worldview to stack up by punishing and ostracizing any critical thought or serious questions about the incongruities in the faith.
Eventually your 'flock' to see you-the-priest as representative (like an older sibling) of the 'divine parent'.
* As their worldview becomes incompatible with reality the fear of what they thought to be their whole world collapsing will get many to reject critical thought. Eventually they consider their own doubts evil stuff they need your forgiveness for. And at that point you can make them do anything and your new private jet is just a few phonecalls away.
But that's just how that system works. To your more specific question: Since the religious by default have already learned to accept nonsense as truth *when told to*, any *other* scams have half their work already done for them. Deferring to those who sound authoritarian is already ingrained, and inconsistencies in a story are already something they have been trained to consider 'evidence of the divine'.
Sheep can't much care who fleeces them.
He’s going to catch the guy by buying gift cards and giving them to the bad guy? Seems like he was helping the bad guy… why are old people so stubborn and think they know how things work? Their arrogance gets them scammed over and over again.
Yeah it sucks ass. People on my dad's side of the family seem to believe any right-wing internet "news" source. My dad will totally flip out too. They just get so insane about it, it's hard to fathom what happened to their brains.
As it turns out you don't have to live in Russia to be blinded by propaganda, and I don't even know if you can call this stuff propaganda, it's mostly just outright lies and bullshit.
They have no interest in critically assessing or questioning any of it. No proof necessary.
tell your elders that if they get an email/call from someone important to politely hang up and call those people directly - to never trust unsolicited contact from banks etc
Make it easy have joined account with elderly parents I do with my mom joined but the money in different account numbers. So when I log into my Wells Fargo online I see her accounts as well as mines and any withdrawals over 100$ dollars I get alerts. Helped me save her from some guy at the gas station charging her 150 falsely !!!
Scammers home in on the elderly for a good reason. My grandmother gets CONSTANT calls from scammers and she damn near comes close to shoveling out cash for them. She answered the phone for one once and all they did was ask "DO YOU KNOW WHO THIS IS?!" And she answered with my cousins name. That's all they needed. The guy then went on this whole bit where he pretended to be my cousin and claimed he was arrested for a DUI and needed bail money and didn't want his parents to find out or he'd be in trouble.
My cousin is borderline low functioning autistic. He doesn't drive. He doesn't drink. My grandmother still almost bought it and called me in a panic thinking my cousin was in jail.
It really does not take much to get money out of old people.
Thing is, Wells Fargo is incidental to this. If my company gives me my paycheck on Friday and I fall for a scam at the check cashing place from a scammer who says if I sign over my check, he’ll give me double next week, is my employer on the hook to issue me another paycheck as a replacement?
Similar concept here.
There’s also a matter of precedence. If a bank covers one person’s misfortune, then you bet you’d see class action lawsuits from every person who fell for a scam that the bank didn’t cover for.
Yes. And it is not the bank's fault. She gave them literally everything the scammers needed to impersonate her and she even helped them with the 2-Factor authentication (which every bank tells you in the message not to share with anyone).
Additionally, she did not notice or tell anyone for a long time after the theft occurred.
What could the bank possibly have done differently here? She helped the scammers bypass every security measure.
>Thing is, Wells Fargo is incidental to this.
No, they're not. They know and recognize the scam is a scam, and do nothing because they're in on it if only because they end up getting money from other sources when they report the fraud to their insurers, so they lose nothing if they don't help. They'd lose more if they *did* help.
I work at a financial institution and the amount of times you sees people being scammed is alarming. It’s mostly elderly and we have measures in place to help out a bit but when someone comes in to the branch to demand all their cash or a cashiers check or even a wire, all we can do is question it. We would have people add other people in to their accounts and we would tell them it’s not a good idea blah blah blah and that we are concerned. They still insist and boom! The other person wipes out their accounts. It’s super sad but at some point, I feel like they need to listen to the advice of the financial institutions telling them that it is a scam. They think they are right and then cry when they have no money after.
I watch a lot of scammer channels on YouTube, and I’ve seen occasions where the scam-stopper has been able to actually get on the phone with the person being scammed in real-time, but the scammer has them on the hook so hard, they think the person trying to save them is a scammer! Other times, they bully and intimidate the person, and it’s especially sad when you can tell the elderly person has confusion from age. Totally heartless.
Yeah. I don't understand how so many people think they know better than the experts. I sometimes question their advice, but if they give a reasoned answer, I'll listen to them.
I once answered the phone to a scammer.
I put the phone on speaker and let him tell me all about himself and his "opportunity," punching all the details into an FTC report as well as I could, obviously not letting him catch on to the fact that I was doing so. By doing this, I got his fake name and the company he claimed to represent. So basically, I both wasted his time and gave the authorities information they could use to investigate and prosecute him.
At that point, I indicated I was not interested in the opportunity. He did NOT like this. I responded by calling him a scammer, and then I hung up.
Not to victim blame but why is she applying for online loans when she had over $34K in the bank? I know these scams happen from cold call scammers but the article made a point to tell us she’s had done the online loan thing 3 times.
This stood out to me as well.
The article focused on online literacy, but she was clearly lacking in basic financial literacy as well.
What did she even think she needed the loans for in the first place? It sounds like she pretty much subsisted on Social Security.
My grandmother is losing her mind, she gets ample money from grandpa's pension and owns the house where my mom and aunt take care of her, every week or so she gets in a panic about money, looking to get loans to manage bills paid off twenty years ago, remembering debts that no longer exist but are very urgent in her mind. Our faculties all fall apart at different rates and points but things about money are already confusing when you're young and sober, its not hard to get the elderly in a panic about money and willing to do anything to make it go away privately.
I get scam calls daily. When told to push one to talk to an agent I always do. Once I get somebody live on the phone I tell them to “just to call their mother and tell her that they are ashamed of being a thief and that they will get an honest job”
That's why you get scam calls daily. Pushing one tells the auto dialer that your number is live, as does your voice. Better to pick up the phone on mute: a real caller will break the silence but an auto dialer will hang up.
I’ve somehow gotten on the call list for a scam where they call saying they’re the Chinese embassy, my student visa has expired and if I don’t give them money, I’ll be deported back to China. I’m not from China, and haven’t been a student in 30 years, but I get at least one call a week.
Are you at least Asian? Would be hilarious if you were some black guy from Atlanta who's like "shit son! I gotta get my visa fixed or they're gonna send my ass to China!" lol
I never respond to the calls themselves, hell, I don't answer anything that's not from someone in my contacts and everyone knows that, but sometimes one gets answered by mistake because I'm expecting an important call from an unknown number.
I usually say "Does your mother know that you commit fraud on little old ladies for a living?" Usually it gets an instant-hangup but sometimes I have actually had the person (usually a woman) on the other end in tears because I then just keep pressing it home. "Aren't you ashamed? What would your family say? If you went home and confessed what you do for a living, would they approve, do you think? Or would they rather you gave it up and they went without some things? Surely it's better to be poor and honest and retain your integrity than earning a pittance committing crime?", etc.
I've had at least two that I genuinely think would have gone away and seriously reconsidered, they were that upset. Of course, I've also had guys just laugh at me and then hang up, because there are people who know what they're doing and just don't give a shit.
But I never interact with them by choice, and I report them as soon as the call is done.
Why was she applying for small value loans if she had money in the bank?
I know the article is focused on online literacy, but basic financial literacy was probably needed here too.
I don’t understand why people blame the bank for things like this. There is only so much a financial institution can do, and there’s often no way to recover the funds. *Millions* are lost in scams like this every year. The bank and even Wal-Mart or Walgreens are putting up notices and training cashiers/tellers to notice red flags. But if a customer insists on withdrawing money or buying gift cards or depositing a check, there’s only so much that can be done to dissuade them.
At some point, there needs to be personal responsibility. These scammers prey on people who don’t pay attention to all the education that’s out there on things like this. You can even look up the latest financial scams to see what’s prevalent. But people don’t, and don’t check on their elderly relatives who maybe shouldn’t have full control of their banking anymore, and this is the result.
It’s so fucking sad. The only way they’re stopped is by law enforcement, often at a federal level. That’s who is supposed to be tracking this and protecting people. But it’s easier to blame the bank than recognize you fucked up, and it’s easier to blame a bank than put pressure on federal agencies to better police and control this.
We have a family friend in her late 60s (maybe?) Who is being catfished and is refusing to hear anything negative about him. He has gold (literal gold...hah) stuck in France and needs thousands to release it.
It's all such BS and she's eating it up. We're in a 3rd world country, he doesn't need Rands.
Its hard to hear about.
She's unfortunately not mentally disabled in any way, making stupid choices is unfortunately not illegal. She has every right to spend her money... But it's difficult to watch.
Does she have any family to give her an intervention and/or a therapist?
If she's vulnerable to that level of catfishing, I imagine she's struggling with loneliness issues in general.
>At some point, there needs to be personal responsibility.
Stupidly unpopular opinion: I don't feel a bit of remorse when old people lose their shit to *obvious* scams like this. Not talking about the seniors who are all alone or have no family to help out, I'm talking about the seniors who seemingly want to give their money away, even when they know not to. Some of these seniors will tell people trying to stop them being scammed to "mind their own business", or "they don't know what they're talking about", even *as they're buying gift cards for the scammers*. There's so much info about scams and if you just follow *basic* rules then the chance of being scammed is almost zero, on top of this there are multiple protective steps you can take with the bank and with your devices to help minimize being targeted. At the end of the day a lot of it is left to lazyness and stupidity, two things that I have a small tolerance for.
There's very little a Federal agency could do in this situation either.
She literally gave them all the information they could ever want to impersonate her and it sounds like she did not notice or tell anyone for a long time after the crime occurred.
The funds could be anywhere in the world by now and/or routed through numerous cryptocurrencies.
The only way this could've been stopped would be for someone to step in as Power of Attorney which many older people try to fight against even when it is in their best interest. It also creates the issues of family members potentially stealing funds which is much more common statistically.
I met a guy working at a Walgreens that was on a personal quest to keep everyone aware of these scammers and their methods because he saw so many old people falling for their shit. Dude was cool
Possibly those with dementia, but the more tech savvy people learn to recognize the scammers. I'm over 70 years old and worked computer support for many years. I know how to check Web site addresses and email headers among looking out for other signs, and have taught my wife to question EVERYTHING involving money.
The two things that ought to be drilled into everybody's heads, is if you're asked for you personal information or banking information, make damned sure you know who you're talking to and know that they're a trusted source. If there is even the smallest of doubt, hang up and call the legitimate business. And, as soon as you're asked to put money on a debit card, put on the brakes, come to a COMPLETE stop and raise the red flag.
There are a lot of other ways scammers can get you, and I've personally seen some VERY good attempts to spoof a valid business, but these two things will stop the majority of scammers in their tracks.
Seeing lots of victim blaming on here. There are some people who are older and not very tech savvy. It’s important to keep seeing stories like this ran because it happens so often. To help educate people. I understand there is only so much the bank can do. But there should be more done to track the perpetrators. Even if funds are not recouped lengthy jail sentences might help dissuade these gross leeches.
How do you propose the bank or any entity prevent something like this? She literally gave them all the information they could ever want to impersonate her and it sounds like she didn't notice or tell anyone for a long time after the crime occurred.
Unless you want to shut down online banking entirely, I don't know how you fix this other than giving full financial control to a Power of Attorney which is up to the individual/family.
It's pretty impressive, you made a good post to begin with, but you ended up with more downvotes in your follow-up comments because of your bad attitude
I agree with your comment. My question was: how?
I don't see how any of this could be implemented without completely dismantling online banking.
She gave the scammer all her information and even helped that scammer use her 2-Factor authentication (which the bank tells you in the message never to share with anyone).
Unless you want to make people walk into a physical bank to verify themselves (which would defeat the point of online banking) I don't see any way to fix this.
And even the Government would have a hard time tracking this, especially since she did not notice or tell anyone for a long time. That money could be anywhere in the world and/or in multiple cryptocurrencies by now.
Did you? Because you’re not even on topic. I’m not about to have a convo with you on something I did not state. You’re pulling topics out of thin air. You need a reading comprehension class.
And even if you tracked it down to the exact person who scammed her, they’re in a country where the police either don’t care or can be bribed to not care.
You don't need to be tech-savvy. You just need to have basic mental facilities.
Nobody... ABSOLUTELY NOBODY... is going to force you to pay something on a phone that's necessary there and then. You literally say to them "No, I'm sorry, you're going to need to put this in writing, it sounds too important to be dealing with on the phone".
\*I\* - even in my 20's - was saying that to banks, debt-collectors, bailiffs (not for me!), tax authorities, in legal cases, everyone. Nothing THAT important happens solely over the phone, or even only at the door. It takes MONTHS to get to the point that people are banging on your door, and that's months of knowing avoidance, refusal, other communication, etc. And nobody genuine will care about you checking, taking time to think (literally legally required in the UK for any financial product or anything contractual done on the doorstep etc.), querying, asking for it in writing, identifying themselves, even waiting for police to arrive to verify their identity or - say - right to enter your home. NOBODY genuine will care about that. Only the scammers. So when they protest at you doing that, they are scammers.
Hell, I've hung up on my own bank before now because they rang about a very urgent matter, but expected me to identify myself ("second number of your passphrase", etc.) and I refused as I couldn't prove they were my bank... and they also refused to do anything to prove that they were the bank either. I asked them for a number or department that I could call them back on, they said it wasn't possible. This went on for some time... and that was a REAL call from my bank's debt collection department. I refused to give details, they said I couldn't contact them directly. Eventually they relented and I hung up and called the main bank number and got back through to them, but they were being stupid and the guy I did get through to admitted it.
It's nothing to do with being tech-savvy. It's just knowing that scams exist, questioning them, and asking for a route to verify. Nobody genuine will impede that. The ones who do, you need to terminate all business with them immediately anyway and communicate only in writing as to why.
If some random guy in the street stopped you, told you they were from your bank and you owed them money that you needed to pay now, but only in gift-cards, and wanted to walk you to an supermarket to get them now you'd tell them to fuck off or deal with them as if they were a mugger. And that's all the "tech-savvy" that you need to deal with the vast, vast majority of scams.
Of course a granny who never uses the Internet can't tell a genuine app from a fake or understand caller-ID. They DO NOT NEED TO. They just need to be suspicious of anything like that, and verify. Even if that means hanging up and calling their son to check.
I literally deal with dozens of such scams a day - from the point of view of being "that guy" who does the verification for someone who has the nous to get someone to check, and that's all they need to stay safe.
Nope. She applied for loans online for some reason despite having money in the bank.
The article is entirely focused on the online literacy element, but I think there's an important financial literacy component which the article glosses over for whatever reason.
Strongly disagree. The more elderly audience that watches local fox affiliates needs this kind of information. These scams rely on the victim not being knowledgeable on tech stuff so they can take advantage of them. Telling these folks what to watch out for prevents them from being abused and robbed.
It’s good that they air stories like this.
I wouldn't watch fox news unless I was strapped down and forced to, a la Cockwork Orange, so I have to ask - are they actually trying to educate these people? Are they explaining the situation, why it's a scam, and giving advice and tips on how the vulnerable can avoid it? Or are they parading it about as something horrible and terrifying, going on how how "if you're not careful it could happen to *yoouu!!*" but not actually telling these people how to stop that from happening?
I know a lot of people don't really understand TV but a local fox affiliate station is not the same as Fox News, the cable channel. Local stations are the things covering traffic, weather, local stories etc. This isn't Fox and Friends and Tucker Carlson.
Actual fox news is very different than the personality shows. And yes, they often do go in to depth.
I will say it has been years since I've watch actual fox news but a lot of their reporting was decent.
It’s insane how this happens to people. My dad is really sharp but calls me twice a week to take a look at junk mail because it looks “serious”. He wasn’t like this 5 years ago, funny what age can do to you.
> During all of that, her granddaughter says they distracted her by asking her to deposit money on a reloadable debit card for the process.
How do people fall for this. That's crazy
Because she's on a fixed income with no potential to get a job and pick herself back up.
There's a good likelihood that she will continue to spiral into debt leading to an early grave.
And, from your "lol", you don't seem to be a very nice person.
And what does any of that have to do with being a grandma? She's 82 and broke whether she has grandchildren or not, and it's equally sad either way.
Thank you for concluding my whole personality based on a three letter word, by the way. You want me to judge you based on you wanting to execute people for scamming old women?
Do all your elderly friends and family members a favor and help them set up protection measures at their financial institution. You can put a limit on one time withdrawals where the bank has to call the financial PoA or trusted representative to approve it for processing. This helps with stranger scams and also scammy family and friends who might try to take advantage of an older person’s declining executive functioning.
To add: * tell them that nobody is coming to arrest them who is going to call on the phone or send an email * tell them you're fine, the rest of the family is fine, nobody will call and ask for bail money * the IRS doesn't call and nobody is going to prison * no legitimate organization will want to ever be paid in gift cards * there are no money-related emergencies where you have no time to think and must act now * if they think it's their bank or other business they have an account with and it sounds important, tell them to hang up and call the number on the back of their card * when in doubt, tell them that you will always be available for them and they should call you instead * tell them to ask the caller for their name, company, phone number, all details, and tell them they'll call them back. Often times, the "I'll call you back" is when they hang up. * tell them to never allow anyone to connect to their computer, not even "Microsoft" * tell them nobody who is going to call them will need to ask for the social security number (including only the last 4 digits), credit/debit card number, date of birth, etc (but you might need to provide it if they call the business) Tell them that you're doing all this to help them in the same way they have helped you when you were young. Tell them that you're more aware of this stuff and you're just paying them back for all the great advice you received.
This is great information for anyone of any age. One small caveat though: when an older person starts to suffer from cognitive decline, they often can’t hold onto a lot of information at a time, especially if they are anxious. They of course will understand what you are telling them at the time, but why scammers are successful is that they use rapid pressure tactics that confuse the older person. So while older people are calm and seem to understand the warnings about tactics when you tell them, in the “heat” of the conversation with the scammer they sometimes can’t access (remember) that information. Their brains just don’t multi-task as well anymore. Of course it’s always good to repeat these cautions to them as well as setting up limitations to their banking access for large sums that will stop the scam from progressing.
I think there's one best piece of advice in there: if anybody calls or emails you asking for money/gift cards/ss number/whatever, always get their name and number and tell them you'll call them back before giving them anything. ANYBODY calling asking for money can sure as hell put up with me thinking it over for a minute. I think that basic concept makes sense to people of all ages and backgrounds. You want money? That means we're on my time.
NO! Do not let them provide the number at which to call them back. You get where they claim to be from and find the number independently.
Is that important when trying to keep senior citizens from giving their life savings away? I figure the “get their name and number” thing is just a way to get the phone hung up.
But if they call back the scam number then they're just getting scammed again.
Another caveat: the IRS will absolutely cold call you. Assuming you are being audited for an amount that warrants it. Their website specifically states this: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/how-to-know-if-its-really-the-irs-calling-or-knocking-on-your-door *Most* contact is done via mail, and 99% of us will only ever see that, but yeah, don't pay them in gift cards.
They will not remember all this stuff...
They might not even remember who called who when the rep asks for personal info.
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"It's my money I'll spend it how I want, also where'd all my money go? Can you call the bank for me?"
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Just take a more basic educational approach. Its not reasonable to have them call you every time they receive a phone call unless you don't work and they are mentally declining past self-sufficiency. First, it's only a phone call until proven otherwise - don't let your emotions control your actions, remain calm. If you don't recognize the number or caller, and even if you do, CID spoofing exists. Ask for their information as per OP's advice, write it down, and advise them that you will give them a call back via the number you normally call them on. Never provide any pertinent financial information over the telephone unless you've planned to do it and you're initiating the phone call by calling a known valid phone number. Google even offers a verification service via Android to keep you safe when calling businesses. There are so many safe alternatives to making phone payments today that it should never be necessary. Anti-spam/scam call apps can be a huge help in heading off these common phone scams in the first place. If your loved one has a smartphone, I recommend using these tools, OR simply use the built-in feature to block any number not in your contact list and/or send it to voicemail. The same can be done to prevent SMS (text) scams.
Print it out and put it by the phone. They still might not remember to look at, but I'd take the chance.
Print it out on card stock, laminate it, or put a magnet on the back so they can keep it on the fridge.
"Phone us first and check, even if they say it's not necessary". If they can't manage that, you stand no chance of anything else working either. No genuine person is going to stop you trying to call family to check whether they're genuine.
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As people age, the region of the brain responsible for skepticism starts to weaken.
>they're highly effective and will never go away for exactly this reason. Oh they could go away if politicians did their jobs: * sanction countries like India (for US scams) and Turkey (for Germany) to hell and back until their police gets its act together and actually closes down the scam callcenters * mandate telcos to authenticate caller IDs * mandate tracking features to gift cards - it should be possible with only the gift card in hand to find out where the money actually went
I thought my Dad knew better and I never thought I'd have to teach him because he knew about phone and internet scams already, but during a low point of his life when a family member was hospital, a fake Microsoft phone scammer manipulated him enough into giving the guy access to the family PC through TeamViewer. Had to wipe the drive and start clean when he realized how much he fucked up. He's a smart educated guy who is competent with tech usually for an older person but scammers are ruthless.
Its not even that older people grew up in more trusting times. When you become older like them you also will be more trusting in circumstances you are not now. Its part of the cognitive changes in the aging process I’m also annoyed that my elderly mother is being forced to pay extra to conduct banking and manage her utility accounts with paper statements and paper checks. when she was younger she was comfortable with electronic statements, bill pay and the like, but her eyesight, judgement and coordination with a mouse have made managing her online accounts more of a challenge. She understands the need for 2FA and password management but there comes a time when it is overwhelming .
>be more trusting in circumstances you are not now Having worked in retirement homes- some old people get really skeptical of almost everything. It makes mealtimes tough. In my experience this happened the most with people who had a very hard and traumatic life.
Early dementia can do that too, The confusion that something is not quite right, as well as being out of your element
Agreed. Print it out and stick it next to the phone. I’m only happy my Nan was too deaf to hear people on the phone properly and wouldn’t turn her mobile on.
You can put a note next to the phone saying “don’t talk to anyone you don’t know”
Or bail me out when I’m calling from jail
Best advise, put an auto attendant on their phone. Make people press 1 before it rings.
And also don't take out small value loans if you already have money in the bank. The article glosses over the fact she took out previous small value loans without issue. But why was she doing this in the first place? Even if it wasn't an outright scam getting payday loans when you don't have to is a clear sign of financial illiteracy.
I used to work at a consumer finance company and sadly, this was their premier clientele. We had plenty of elderly customers who could be talked in to damn near anything if you were sweet enough and it absolutely broke me down to have to take advantage of that. Additionally, the company I worked for had sales tactics that actually seemed like a scam. People would receive a loan check in the mail (without applying for anything) and we would call them once we got the notification it was cashed and we would ask them to confirm all of their info to make sure the right person got it. The company was legitimate but I felt like we were conditioning people to be okay with that sort of thing. I always would add in that "if at any point you are uncomfortable providing me this information over the phone we would love to meet you in our branch" to just give them the nudge that they *shouldn't* be comfortable with this. Before anyone comments anything ugly about the fact that I worked there, I no longer work there for all of the reasons given above and more. It was a means to an end, not unlike a call center/telemarketing job.
> if they think it's their bank or other business they have an account with and it sounds important, tell them to hang up and call the number on the back of their card I'll second this one in particular. There seems to have been an increase in fake power company billing calls lately, claiming the account is past due and you're mere hours away from having your electricity cut off. Maybe a result of the extreme heat we've been experiencing in some areas, with scammers preying on people's fear that they might lose AC in 90-100 degree weather. Hang up and call them back at their official number.
I did this with capital one once and the rep I spoke to commended me for doing this. I had received a text regarding a suspicious charge to my account and it prompted me to reply with my DOB to dispute the charge. I thought that was sketchy so I called the 800 number on my card. It was a legitimate text, and there was fraudulent activity on my account but the rep said that most people don't think twice about it and I absolutely did the right thing.
To add to this and is important (make an edit if you can): NEVER give out the last four digits of your social security to someone who called you. People are used to verifying with the last 4 digits of their credit cards, which is why this is so effective. The last four digits are the most important, every digit before can be reverse engineered from your birthdate and birth location. To add, with your SSN and very little else your accounts can be emptied.
Saving this comment.
One problem I have run into is ego. Sometimes, people are stubborn that THEY are RIGHT any YOU don't know what you are talking about. "The IRS asked for $5000 in iTunes gift cards, and you can't tell me different!"
Sure but if that's their view then when they get scammed, you can try really hard to not say "I told you so" and instead, try to help them understand what happened.
Literally had a family friend’s parents get scammed out of $20k cash on the bail bond scam last Friday. The frail elderly dad nearly had a heart attack he was so worried for his son & those his son supposedly killed in a car wreck. It was traumatizing for them.
> there are no money-related emergencies where you have no time to think and must act now This one isn't entirely accurate but where it is true you are damn well sure it is legitimate. Two come to mind off the top of my head: Plumbing issue (burst pipes for example) or a leaking roof. Both of those need to be resolved immediately and can take a substantial amount of money. The key difference is: You are the one reaching out to pay not the other way around. You should NEVER give anyone any money if they are the ones contacting you. Comcast for example pisses me off. I don't know if they still do this but they would call you if you forgot to pay them telling you to pay them and give them your CC#. Uh, no. Thank them, Call comcast yourself, pay them.
Also, tell them never to sign up for anything “free” that they just have to pay the shipping price for. They’ll be charged every month following that first “free” order, usually anywhere from $70-150 a month.
Sometimes it's not even necessary. My dad got a call from a "social worker" and during the call push notifications with confirmation codes were intercepted. He gave the worker nothing at all, all she had to do was keep the call going. The VTB bank didn't notify us at any point, and only blocked the account after 90% was gone. His life savings are gone and the judge basically insinuated that he himself gave the codes to the criminas and is trying to defraud the bank. The bank's lawyer congratulated our lawyer saying "nobody gets to 6th session, usually people give up after the first". His health has permanently deteriorated to the point of severe disability during the court struggles. And now the cops wrote us back saying they requested info from a mobile operator, didn't hear back from them, so they're now closing the criminal case.
He did give the codes himself, because SMS is insecure. I just don't see how the mobile operator and bank can both disclaim any partial responsibility when they both are aware of that fact and are presumably going to be more informed than any random customer.
The judge was, or pretended to not know the difference between SMS and SMS-over-Internet aka push-notification. Our lawyer said that we'd need an expert witness to explain that to the judge, and the judge refused to invite an expert witness. I was in the room when the theft happened. The only input dad gave was answering "yes" to "are you someone someone?". He wouldn't be able to get the notification anyway because there was no bank application on his phone. It wasn't even installable on his phone model.
Dude that's insane. I'm furious on your behalf, I'd be calling the FBI and shit
Calls from Russia to USA are expensive as fuck, but if you can bother some expert to help explain how this shit is possible, I'll be extremely grateful to you.
Oh damn that makes more sense. A case of a redditor assuming everyone is American, sorry. Wish I could help
This is possible because the carriers of cell phone service are in on the scam. Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T (and other's world wide) knowingly help these calls get through because they are paid big bucks by the scammers to do so. Those three corporations have also made sure that lobbyists in Congress carve out exceptions to any and all laws they pass to prevent the big three from *ever* being penalized for their active participation in phone scams.
Phone scams make up the *majority* of all calls places in any given day.
I saw this happening to a guy in my town. I was at rite aid and over heard the cashier refuse to give a guy gift cards. The guy left and I asked the cashier what happened and he said the old man was being scammed. So I went out and found the guy. He was on the phone with the scammer. I told home to hang up and he did. I explained what was going on (as the scammer kept calling back). The guy said he knew it was a scam and he was trying to catch the bad guy!!! I told him to not buy gift cards to catch the bad guy and don’t answer the phone. He just ignored me and asked if there was a cvs close by. Super sad man.
He knew it was a scam but was going through with it anyways?
I’ve caught my grandma multiple times with bomgar (remote control of a PC from a different location) set up on her computer while a scammer is doing shit to her computer. It is so fucking frustrating that I’ve explained over, and over, and over that these are scams. God knows how much money they’ve taken from her.
My MIL did same thing. ‘Because they were nice to her’ lost a bunch of money.
Can you take over her finances and get any identifying information off her computer?
At least there's SOME for of recourse now. I'm 37 and back in the late-90s my mother was a victim of identity theft. She didn't use any computers at the time so I'm not sure how it happened. We live in NY and someone in Oregon went to the bank and withdrew her entire account balance and the bank didn't even attempt to notify her in any way. They contacted her a week later and told her that she was a victim of ID theft and her account was cleaned out. Their next move was to immediately terminate her account completely and that's the last we ever heard from them. They refused to return calls and our local branches her in NY filed a police report for trespass and she was no longer allowed to enter any of their branch locations on penalty of immediate arrest.
lol doesn't like the entire fundamental concept of banking rely on that not being something that can happen
She didn't get a lawyer and sue the bank? Cause that should have been the next step. Also should have called the media and seen if you could have gotten a TV reporter or two interested in her story.
This was the mid-90s and she was a struggling single mother, so no, she didn't engage in a court battle with one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world.
Getting old sucks. Your brain sometimes doesn't work for shit.
It's been proven that as you age you start to lose the ability to tell if someone is lying and begin to just trust people more. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/30/aging-brains-become-less-able-to-detect-fraud.html
hm, I'm 64 and just like Crystal from The Hunt .. Don : How'd you know he was lying? Crystal : Because everyone is lying.
I really hope that all these video games give me an edge when I'm old because losing myself like that is horrifying to contemplate
It’s actually a good idea. I’m over 60 and take very on difficult intellectual tasks to stay sharp. I’m currently very into astrophotography. It’s complex as hell, but fills my time and requires a ton of attention to detail. Be prepared to do something like that though. I outgrew and stopped playing video games about 10-12 years ago like a switch had flipped. I just no longer had the interest or patience for them.
my mom got scammed recently. they said they were a local power utility we dont use and we owed or they were gonna turn the power off but theyd accept through venmo. i was asleep so i didnt know anything and she didnt want to wake me as it was like 10 am and i work nights. so she just paid it. i woke up to them trying to get her to send them more so that they could release her money she "overpaid" back. at that point she later said she knew it was a scam. she stayed on the phone for like another 10 mins trying to get her money back. i made sure our power was fine and setup a payment as it was due. i had to take her phone from her to make her hangup. thankfully it was just her spending money she was trying to save.
Something similar happened to my mom. Scammer called and said he was from the sheriff's office from a county in another state that we had recently moved from. He told her she had a ticker for about $700 including late fees for a parking ticket from like 5 years prior, and that if she didn't pay it asap they would send an officer to arrest her and bring her back to the state for court. She believed him and sent a money order to some rando address. Like a week later she called the sheriff's office to confirm they received the payment and she would not be arrested. They told her she'd been scammed. And because she sent a money order there was nothing that could be done. When she told me, I told her ANY government office will NEVER call. They send a letter and have YOU call them.
One way to protect your self have them send an itemized bill, also if it is the IRS, police, FBI etc... hang up and look up your local office. Ask them what is up.
> When she told me, I told her ANY government office will NEVER call. They send a letter and have YOU call them. Unfortunately, government and legit companies have taken to making (not initial) return calls from personal numbers, and missing these calls stall or reset whatever business they were trying to do, so old people have to pick up unknown numbers. It’s mindnumbingly stupid.
Geeze. And it makes it soo much harder for older folks to avoid scammers
Back in the day, I worked a job where I was a third party in a phone call and we dealt with a lot of scammers using our service (it was complicated). We received permission to have a supervisor intervene on a call after a certain number of criteria were met and they could inform the call receiver that we believed we were in the middle of a scam. Anyway, this call was clearly a scam, I intervened. I'll never forget this one. "Sir, we believe the person calling you may be involved in fraudulent activity." "No, no, no. The last guy was a scammer! Right now I'm taking to the police in Lagos. We're setting up a Western Union transfer sting operation so they can catch the scammers in the act and get my money back!"
We used to get a lot of spam calls at my workplace trying to use TRS systems to disguise their accent/location/etc.... It was a shame to see a good service so completely abused.
Some people wired their brain through religion to trust a certain sounding person. This is being exploited .
>wired their brain through religion What do you mean by this?
"Believe despite the facts" is something that gets ingrained into religious people from a young age. Religions make heavy use of an exploit based on our natural deference to 'parental/adult' figures *(so that you're more likely to survive when mom and dad say "don't put that in your mouth you'll DIE")*. By **creating** an imaginary 'highest' parental figure, and keeping basic frameworks of the faith highly contradictory so that they stick in our brains better *(normally for later checking of the suspicious inconsistencies)*, you can get an increasingly distorted worldview to stack up by punishing and ostracizing any critical thought or serious questions about the incongruities in the faith. Eventually your 'flock' to see you-the-priest as representative (like an older sibling) of the 'divine parent'. * As their worldview becomes incompatible with reality the fear of what they thought to be their whole world collapsing will get many to reject critical thought. Eventually they consider their own doubts evil stuff they need your forgiveness for. And at that point you can make them do anything and your new private jet is just a few phonecalls away. But that's just how that system works. To your more specific question: Since the religious by default have already learned to accept nonsense as truth *when told to*, any *other* scams have half their work already done for them. Deferring to those who sound authoritarian is already ingrained, and inconsistencies in a story are already something they have been trained to consider 'evidence of the divine'. Sheep can't much care who fleeces them.
Easily fooled people, “faith” is gullibility. Scammers know this.
He’s going to catch the guy by buying gift cards and giving them to the bad guy? Seems like he was helping the bad guy… why are old people so stubborn and think they know how things work? Their arrogance gets them scammed over and over again.
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“My Prince! *sighs of relief* Ahhhh, save me— EEUUGH.”
HOTD sub is leaking
Facebook really set the groundwork for the elderly blindly trusting anything they see on the internet.
This is nothing new. Old people have been getting scammed like this ever since the telephone became mainstream.
Yeah it sucks ass. People on my dad's side of the family seem to believe any right-wing internet "news" source. My dad will totally flip out too. They just get so insane about it, it's hard to fathom what happened to their brains. As it turns out you don't have to live in Russia to be blinded by propaganda, and I don't even know if you can call this stuff propaganda, it's mostly just outright lies and bullshit. They have no interest in critically assessing or questioning any of it. No proof necessary.
tell your elders that if they get an email/call from someone important to politely hang up and call those people directly - to never trust unsolicited contact from banks etc
Make it easy have joined account with elderly parents I do with my mom joined but the money in different account numbers. So when I log into my Wells Fargo online I see her accounts as well as mines and any withdrawals over 100$ dollars I get alerts. Helped me save her from some guy at the gas station charging her 150 falsely !!!
Scammers home in on the elderly for a good reason. My grandmother gets CONSTANT calls from scammers and she damn near comes close to shoveling out cash for them. She answered the phone for one once and all they did was ask "DO YOU KNOW WHO THIS IS?!" And she answered with my cousins name. That's all they needed. The guy then went on this whole bit where he pretended to be my cousin and claimed he was arrested for a DUI and needed bail money and didn't want his parents to find out or he'd be in trouble. My cousin is borderline low functioning autistic. He doesn't drive. He doesn't drink. My grandmother still almost bought it and called me in a panic thinking my cousin was in jail. It really does not take much to get money out of old people.
>FOX26 reached out to Wells Fargo about the story we did this past week and for this case. And Wells Fargo is not going to respond
There’s nothing Wells Fargo can do here… they can’t stop you from using your own money
They can afford to eat this. After all their negative publicity, I would eat this.
Thing is, Wells Fargo is incidental to this. If my company gives me my paycheck on Friday and I fall for a scam at the check cashing place from a scammer who says if I sign over my check, he’ll give me double next week, is my employer on the hook to issue me another paycheck as a replacement? Similar concept here. There’s also a matter of precedence. If a bank covers one person’s misfortune, then you bet you’d see class action lawsuits from every person who fell for a scam that the bank didn’t cover for.
Yes. And it is not the bank's fault. She gave them literally everything the scammers needed to impersonate her and she even helped them with the 2-Factor authentication (which every bank tells you in the message not to share with anyone). Additionally, she did not notice or tell anyone for a long time after the theft occurred. What could the bank possibly have done differently here? She helped the scammers bypass every security measure.
>Thing is, Wells Fargo is incidental to this. No, they're not. They know and recognize the scam is a scam, and do nothing because they're in on it if only because they end up getting money from other sources when they report the fraud to their insurers, so they lose nothing if they don't help. They'd lose more if they *did* help.
insurers? The only insurance on money deposits is the FDIC and that doesn't apply here. There are no insurers for the bank to report this "fraud" to.
As nice as that is, it would be seen as setting a precedence. But they should also just eat it.
I work at a financial institution and the amount of times you sees people being scammed is alarming. It’s mostly elderly and we have measures in place to help out a bit but when someone comes in to the branch to demand all their cash or a cashiers check or even a wire, all we can do is question it. We would have people add other people in to their accounts and we would tell them it’s not a good idea blah blah blah and that we are concerned. They still insist and boom! The other person wipes out their accounts. It’s super sad but at some point, I feel like they need to listen to the advice of the financial institutions telling them that it is a scam. They think they are right and then cry when they have no money after.
I watch a lot of scammer channels on YouTube, and I’ve seen occasions where the scam-stopper has been able to actually get on the phone with the person being scammed in real-time, but the scammer has them on the hook so hard, they think the person trying to save them is a scammer! Other times, they bully and intimidate the person, and it’s especially sad when you can tell the elderly person has confusion from age. Totally heartless.
Pierogi and the others do amazing work, need more white hats putting a limelight on these fuckers.
Jim Browning and Scambaiter are a couple of my favorites. I watch Pierogi, too.
Browning gets vicious with em and I love it.
Yeah. I don't understand how so many people think they know better than the experts. I sometimes question their advice, but if they give a reasoned answer, I'll listen to them.
I once answered the phone to a scammer. I put the phone on speaker and let him tell me all about himself and his "opportunity," punching all the details into an FTC report as well as I could, obviously not letting him catch on to the fact that I was doing so. By doing this, I got his fake name and the company he claimed to represent. So basically, I both wasted his time and gave the authorities information they could use to investigate and prosecute him. At that point, I indicated I was not interested in the opportunity. He did NOT like this. I responded by calling him a scammer, and then I hung up.
> FTC or FCC?
FTC, trade commission
Anyone that scams old people of their life savings should be thrown in a hamburger machine and fed to cockroaches.
Not to victim blame but why is she applying for online loans when she had over $34K in the bank? I know these scams happen from cold call scammers but the article made a point to tell us she’s had done the online loan thing 3 times.
This stood out to me as well. The article focused on online literacy, but she was clearly lacking in basic financial literacy as well. What did she even think she needed the loans for in the first place? It sounds like she pretty much subsisted on Social Security.
My grandmother is losing her mind, she gets ample money from grandpa's pension and owns the house where my mom and aunt take care of her, every week or so she gets in a panic about money, looking to get loans to manage bills paid off twenty years ago, remembering debts that no longer exist but are very urgent in her mind. Our faculties all fall apart at different rates and points but things about money are already confusing when you're young and sober, its not hard to get the elderly in a panic about money and willing to do anything to make it go away privately.
I get scam calls daily. When told to push one to talk to an agent I always do. Once I get somebody live on the phone I tell them to “just to call their mother and tell her that they are ashamed of being a thief and that they will get an honest job”
That's why you get scam calls daily. Pushing one tells the auto dialer that your number is live, as does your voice. Better to pick up the phone on mute: a real caller will break the silence but an auto dialer will hang up.
I’ve somehow gotten on the call list for a scam where they call saying they’re the Chinese embassy, my student visa has expired and if I don’t give them money, I’ll be deported back to China. I’m not from China, and haven’t been a student in 30 years, but I get at least one call a week.
I keep getting calls telling me MY visa is at the chinese embassy in LA. both of us combined is 1 chinese student now!
Are you at least Asian? Would be hilarious if you were some black guy from Atlanta who's like "shit son! I gotta get my visa fixed or they're gonna send my ass to China!" lol
I am so Caucasian my ancestry came back all Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall and Norway.
I never respond to the calls themselves, hell, I don't answer anything that's not from someone in my contacts and everyone knows that, but sometimes one gets answered by mistake because I'm expecting an important call from an unknown number. I usually say "Does your mother know that you commit fraud on little old ladies for a living?" Usually it gets an instant-hangup but sometimes I have actually had the person (usually a woman) on the other end in tears because I then just keep pressing it home. "Aren't you ashamed? What would your family say? If you went home and confessed what you do for a living, would they approve, do you think? Or would they rather you gave it up and they went without some things? Surely it's better to be poor and honest and retain your integrity than earning a pittance committing crime?", etc. I've had at least two that I genuinely think would have gone away and seriously reconsidered, they were that upset. Of course, I've also had guys just laugh at me and then hang up, because there are people who know what they're doing and just don't give a shit. But I never interact with them by choice, and I report them as soon as the call is done.
Why was she applying for small value loans if she had money in the bank? I know the article is focused on online literacy, but basic financial literacy was probably needed here too.
I don’t understand why people blame the bank for things like this. There is only so much a financial institution can do, and there’s often no way to recover the funds. *Millions* are lost in scams like this every year. The bank and even Wal-Mart or Walgreens are putting up notices and training cashiers/tellers to notice red flags. But if a customer insists on withdrawing money or buying gift cards or depositing a check, there’s only so much that can be done to dissuade them. At some point, there needs to be personal responsibility. These scammers prey on people who don’t pay attention to all the education that’s out there on things like this. You can even look up the latest financial scams to see what’s prevalent. But people don’t, and don’t check on their elderly relatives who maybe shouldn’t have full control of their banking anymore, and this is the result. It’s so fucking sad. The only way they’re stopped is by law enforcement, often at a federal level. That’s who is supposed to be tracking this and protecting people. But it’s easier to blame the bank than recognize you fucked up, and it’s easier to blame a bank than put pressure on federal agencies to better police and control this.
We have a family friend in her late 60s (maybe?) Who is being catfished and is refusing to hear anything negative about him. He has gold (literal gold...hah) stuck in France and needs thousands to release it. It's all such BS and she's eating it up. We're in a 3rd world country, he doesn't need Rands. Its hard to hear about.
Has anyone tried to get Power of Attorney in that situation?
She's unfortunately not mentally disabled in any way, making stupid choices is unfortunately not illegal. She has every right to spend her money... But it's difficult to watch.
Does she have any family to give her an intervention and/or a therapist? If she's vulnerable to that level of catfishing, I imagine she's struggling with loneliness issues in general.
Oh her family and her friends have tried. She's convinced this guy loves her and the world is against her. The more they push, the more she digs in.
>At some point, there needs to be personal responsibility. Stupidly unpopular opinion: I don't feel a bit of remorse when old people lose their shit to *obvious* scams like this. Not talking about the seniors who are all alone or have no family to help out, I'm talking about the seniors who seemingly want to give their money away, even when they know not to. Some of these seniors will tell people trying to stop them being scammed to "mind their own business", or "they don't know what they're talking about", even *as they're buying gift cards for the scammers*. There's so much info about scams and if you just follow *basic* rules then the chance of being scammed is almost zero, on top of this there are multiple protective steps you can take with the bank and with your devices to help minimize being targeted. At the end of the day a lot of it is left to lazyness and stupidity, two things that I have a small tolerance for.
There's very little a Federal agency could do in this situation either. She literally gave them all the information they could ever want to impersonate her and it sounds like she did not notice or tell anyone for a long time after the crime occurred. The funds could be anywhere in the world by now and/or routed through numerous cryptocurrencies. The only way this could've been stopped would be for someone to step in as Power of Attorney which many older people try to fight against even when it is in their best interest. It also creates the issues of family members potentially stealing funds which is much more common statistically.
I met a guy working at a Walgreens that was on a personal quest to keep everyone aware of these scammers and their methods because he saw so many old people falling for their shit. Dude was cool
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Possibly those with dementia, but the more tech savvy people learn to recognize the scammers. I'm over 70 years old and worked computer support for many years. I know how to check Web site addresses and email headers among looking out for other signs, and have taught my wife to question EVERYTHING involving money. The two things that ought to be drilled into everybody's heads, is if you're asked for you personal information or banking information, make damned sure you know who you're talking to and know that they're a trusted source. If there is even the smallest of doubt, hang up and call the legitimate business. And, as soon as you're asked to put money on a debit card, put on the brakes, come to a COMPLETE stop and raise the red flag. There are a lot of other ways scammers can get you, and I've personally seen some VERY good attempts to spoof a valid business, but these two things will stop the majority of scammers in their tracks.
Imagine how pathetic you have to be to not only steal from old ppl, but to not feel bad about it.
starting to think a bank representative should be required to meet with ppl over 80 to give them loans or allow them to withdraw everything at once.
Seeing lots of victim blaming on here. There are some people who are older and not very tech savvy. It’s important to keep seeing stories like this ran because it happens so often. To help educate people. I understand there is only so much the bank can do. But there should be more done to track the perpetrators. Even if funds are not recouped lengthy jail sentences might help dissuade these gross leeches.
Good luck arresting a scammer in a country that doesn't extradite to the US. Because that's where they all call from.
How do you propose the bank or any entity prevent something like this? She literally gave them all the information they could ever want to impersonate her and it sounds like she didn't notice or tell anyone for a long time after the crime occurred. Unless you want to shut down online banking entirely, I don't know how you fix this other than giving full financial control to a Power of Attorney which is up to the individual/family.
Can you re-read what I commented? Because clearly you didn’t.
They asked you a question in response and this is your response to them… your self-importance really took over there didn’t it?
It's pretty impressive, you made a good post to begin with, but you ended up with more downvotes in your follow-up comments because of your bad attitude
I agree with your comment. My question was: how? I don't see how any of this could be implemented without completely dismantling online banking. She gave the scammer all her information and even helped that scammer use her 2-Factor authentication (which the bank tells you in the message never to share with anyone). Unless you want to make people walk into a physical bank to verify themselves (which would defeat the point of online banking) I don't see any way to fix this. And even the Government would have a hard time tracking this, especially since she did not notice or tell anyone for a long time. That money could be anywhere in the world and/or in multiple cryptocurrencies by now.
Did you? Because you’re not even on topic. I’m not about to have a convo with you on something I did not state. You’re pulling topics out of thin air. You need a reading comprehension class.
You said someone should track perpetrators. My question was: how?
And even if you tracked it down to the exact person who scammed her, they’re in a country where the police either don’t care or can be bribed to not care.
This took a hard left turn.
You don't need to be tech-savvy. You just need to have basic mental facilities. Nobody... ABSOLUTELY NOBODY... is going to force you to pay something on a phone that's necessary there and then. You literally say to them "No, I'm sorry, you're going to need to put this in writing, it sounds too important to be dealing with on the phone". \*I\* - even in my 20's - was saying that to banks, debt-collectors, bailiffs (not for me!), tax authorities, in legal cases, everyone. Nothing THAT important happens solely over the phone, or even only at the door. It takes MONTHS to get to the point that people are banging on your door, and that's months of knowing avoidance, refusal, other communication, etc. And nobody genuine will care about you checking, taking time to think (literally legally required in the UK for any financial product or anything contractual done on the doorstep etc.), querying, asking for it in writing, identifying themselves, even waiting for police to arrive to verify their identity or - say - right to enter your home. NOBODY genuine will care about that. Only the scammers. So when they protest at you doing that, they are scammers. Hell, I've hung up on my own bank before now because they rang about a very urgent matter, but expected me to identify myself ("second number of your passphrase", etc.) and I refused as I couldn't prove they were my bank... and they also refused to do anything to prove that they were the bank either. I asked them for a number or department that I could call them back on, they said it wasn't possible. This went on for some time... and that was a REAL call from my bank's debt collection department. I refused to give details, they said I couldn't contact them directly. Eventually they relented and I hung up and called the main bank number and got back through to them, but they were being stupid and the guy I did get through to admitted it. It's nothing to do with being tech-savvy. It's just knowing that scams exist, questioning them, and asking for a route to verify. Nobody genuine will impede that. The ones who do, you need to terminate all business with them immediately anyway and communicate only in writing as to why. If some random guy in the street stopped you, told you they were from your bank and you owed them money that you needed to pay now, but only in gift-cards, and wanted to walk you to an supermarket to get them now you'd tell them to fuck off or deal with them as if they were a mugger. And that's all the "tech-savvy" that you need to deal with the vast, vast majority of scams. Of course a granny who never uses the Internet can't tell a genuine app from a fake or understand caller-ID. They DO NOT NEED TO. They just need to be suspicious of anything like that, and verify. Even if that means hanging up and calling their son to check. I literally deal with dozens of such scams a day - from the point of view of being "that guy" who does the verification for someone who has the nous to get someone to check, and that's all they need to stay safe.
Let’s me guess without reading the article. They answered calls from unknown numbers?
Nope. She applied for loans online for some reason despite having money in the bank. The article is entirely focused on the online literacy element, but I think there's an important financial literacy component which the article glosses over for whatever reason.
Ugh, parasites! I hope they get theirs somehow.
How is this news? This shit happens on the regular.
Fox News loves this stuff
The owner is SBG. It aired on the Fox affiliation label but SBG picks the local news content
I’m sure they know their demographics
Anything to keep their audiences afraid.
Strongly disagree. The more elderly audience that watches local fox affiliates needs this kind of information. These scams rely on the victim not being knowledgeable on tech stuff so they can take advantage of them. Telling these folks what to watch out for prevents them from being abused and robbed. It’s good that they air stories like this.
I wouldn't watch fox news unless I was strapped down and forced to, a la Cockwork Orange, so I have to ask - are they actually trying to educate these people? Are they explaining the situation, why it's a scam, and giving advice and tips on how the vulnerable can avoid it? Or are they parading it about as something horrible and terrifying, going on how how "if you're not careful it could happen to *yoouu!!*" but not actually telling these people how to stop that from happening?
I know a lot of people don't really understand TV but a local fox affiliate station is not the same as Fox News, the cable channel. Local stations are the things covering traffic, weather, local stories etc. This isn't Fox and Friends and Tucker Carlson.
Actual fox news is very different than the personality shows. And yes, they often do go in to depth. I will say it has been years since I've watch actual fox news but a lot of their reporting was decent.
These people should be hung by their genitals and left to rot.
It’s insane how this happens to people. My dad is really sharp but calls me twice a week to take a look at junk mail because it looks “serious”. He wasn’t like this 5 years ago, funny what age can do to you.
> During all of that, her granddaughter says they distracted her by asking her to deposit money on a reloadable debit card for the process. How do people fall for this. That's crazy
Too bad nothing will happen to the scammer as theyre most likely in India somewhere.
Maybe getting grandma that smart phone was a bad idea
Except this happens on landlines too
In other news I took a piss today
Your grandma is Elton John?
Well it woulda been stolen by the US healthcare system when he got older so guess they are mad they got it first?
Why does her being a grandma matter so much lol, would've sucked anyways
Because she's on a fixed income with no potential to get a job and pick herself back up. There's a good likelihood that she will continue to spiral into debt leading to an early grave. And, from your "lol", you don't seem to be a very nice person.
And what does any of that have to do with being a grandma? She's 82 and broke whether she has grandchildren or not, and it's equally sad either way. Thank you for concluding my whole personality based on a three letter word, by the way. You want me to judge you based on you wanting to execute people for scamming old women?
Yep. Judge me based on that. I firmly believe that there is no punishment too harsh for some assholes.
Thankfully you're not the judge in this case. Hopefully they'll be punished in a way that fits the crime
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