Yesterday my mother lost her (meager) life savings. If you think it can’t happen to your loved ones (as I did until 24 hours ago) it might mean your guard is too far down. Talk to your (especially elderly) loved ones NOW, because an ounce of prevention may avoid a ton of cure. In my mother’s case, it happened via a scam involving people on the phone causing her to withdraw all of her money from the bank, then deposit the cash into several bitcoin machines around town. Because the perpetrators also convinced her that her mobile phone was not to be used because it was “hacked,” she performed all this leg work (over the course of 4-5 hours) while not contacting me or anyone else for a dose of reality. Now, if reading the above summary first and foremost elicits the feeling that my mother is - well - an idiot, you’re not alone and I needn’t have it pointed out any further here. To fully exercise this first instinct of condemning my mother’s judgment, I’ll further m admit that the summary I’ve provided omits several astonishing details that, if told, would only further justify your first instinct. In all, it’s embarrassing to admit, even on this anonymous forum, the ludicrous nature of this scam and the resulting indictment of my mother’s judgment. Despite that embarrassment, the point of this post: until 24 hours ago I would have disbelieved my mother was capable of such incredibly tragic judgment, and you might hope to avoid a similar error. In my family’s case, it’s not as though my mother was financially independent in any deeply meaningful way, but there has also been a mental cost. On one view, her “life’s savings” were relatively minimal (less than 6 figures). Still, that money did represent for her what little financial independence she’d managed, and to have been duped into just handing it over has put her in a tragic mental state. Which is the other lesson learned the hard way by us, but for free to you here: once this sort of scam is perpetrated on your loved one, the financial loss becomes of perhaps secondary importance to the mental and emotional damage. After-all, your loved one also believed themselves incapable of such poor judgment, and must then come to grips with the consequences. Consider not being overly confident in your loved ones. Have a chat with them now, tell them my mother’s story, or however else you feel best plants a seed in their minds to be deeply skeptical of anything involving any third party discussing their finances/accounts/crypto whatsoever. If your family balks at the implication that they could be so naive, so be it - my mother also would have balked at it 48 hours ago, but it quite possibly would have saved more than her money.
It’s a common thing because it works unfortunately. There’s an ongoing struggle in the watch collector world on Instagram where collectors’ accounts are being stolen and used to scam their friends, smart people make bad mistakes too unfortunately. Thanks for sharing this.
Only after the fact have I learned that in the U.S. in 2021 alone there were over 60,000 such incidents totaling billions is losses. Further emphasizes skepticism of “couldn’t happen to us.”
Thanks for this sad reminder. I never experienced anything closely similar with my (now deceased) parents, but did once fall for a lower-level scam myself, and it cost my father a few grand. I received an email (purportedly) from a friend of his, whom I also knew, requesting help because he was supposedly stranded while traveling. Although the texts of the emails were fairly convincing, all of the warning signs were there, and I was too busy and stupid to notice them. The key to these scams is to knock the victim off-balance emotionally, and I would say that the key to avoiding victimization is to take a deep breath, and ask yourself and others whether the call to alarm is real, before acting.
Dont judge people to hard. We all make mistakes. Thnx for sharing. And give your mother our best wishes. Maybe we can give her a present as OF? To make her feel a bit better. I'm willing to donate.
It makers me very said to read this and my sympathies go out to your mother and to you. The people that perpetrate these scams are the lowest of the low and have no hesitation about taking advantage of the most vulnerable members of society and the elderly in particular. I'd like to see them all prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but there are simply too many of them to chase down. Shut one operation down and another pops up. The best measure is prevention and, as Tony C. says, that means being well attuned to the social engineering scams that these people use. Unfortunately, many of these scams are quite sophisticated and sometimes fool even those who are both competent and vigilant.
Thank you for sharing this. We humans tend to have a trusting nature and it is only glaringly obvious after being scammed that there were warning signs. Yes, we should all alert our elderly relatives to be vigilant. This will only become more common with time and as the population of baby boomers ages even more.
Me and @JwRosenthal were just having this discussion the other day. The elderly population is amongst the most preyed upon, abused and taken advantage of. Its a damn shame.
Awful to hear it happened to someone close to you. Just had the talk with my parents but not 100% confident it won't happen to them in the future with the sophistication the scammers are implementing to get what they want.
Very sorry to hear this happened to your mother. Unfortunately it’s not that uncommon. Scammers fooled my wife’s aunt out of about 5,000. Luckily for her it wasn’t her life savings but it still embarrassed and depressed her. They prey on the elderly. Hopefully there’s a horrible place for these thieves in the after or next life.
Sorry. This is one of my big fears for my parents and dare I say, my wife is a bit too trusting as well. Thanks for bringing it up. The embarrassment and lack of reporting is part of what helps keep these guys going. Shine a light on their scammy asses and watch them scatter like the cockroaches they are.
SO sorry to hear what happened to your mother. Is there any hope to get her money back? I've seen some scumbags on youtube,some young guys making a fortune and living in Dubai and scamming people,in the end they were cought but many people lost their money! You wrote that it wasn't a big ammount but I would say even if she loses a dollar its not fair because it is her money that she worked hard for them! Hopefully there is a chance she can have her money back!
This guy with his "crew" were scamming people to invest is some ghost real estate companies. He had like 3 million followers on Instagram and showing he was very succesful and rich. Showing photos with expencive cars and even private jets and people were believing him and they did "invest" their money in his fake companies. https://qz.com/africa/1879261/fbi-use-instagram-to-get-dubai-nigerian-fraudster-hushpuppi/
I’m so sorry this happened. My parents (mother and step-father) are also of the age. They are incredibly sharp, but my step-father is more likely to get taken by a sob story confidence scheme and give the cash away than a financial breach worry. Those predators are out there too. He has been very magnanimous with social programs, some I have thought sounded a bit shady. Luckily my mother ultimately holds the purse strings and she is very tight…but it just takes him giving away the routing numbers once.
Of course she will get her money back. I would imagine that @cvalue13 will "find" her cash within a few days. After all, when we were children, when we accidentally lost a favorite toy (or a goldfish was "sleeping"), our parents might have magically "found" it.
If you think about it, the fact that there are bitcoin machines popping up in convenience stores is a sign the Apocalypse is upon us.
That is rather odd I read about those scams most of the time they are done with money gram cards. Those Bitcoin ATM suck a crazy amount in fees and arbitrage. They can also be confusing to use. Your mother would have KYC’d herself on that ATM. It’s worth contacting the authorities if she sent it to a KYC wallet address it could be recovered but there is a very good chance it’s outside the US. Horrible thing for your mother and it’s always disappointing to hear how scummy we humans can be to each other.