Has your relative been scammed?

[kyounge1956]

My mom got a phone call recently from someone who claimed to be working for Microsoft, and offering to help her with her computer problems. Fortunately, some of my distrust of people who call on the phone has rubbed off on her, and she didn't him give any information. I imagine what the guy was after was to get into her computer and possibly get enough info for identity theft, or to get her credit card number to pay for "technical assistance".

 

[MRG]

Why should anyone feel bad about not answering the phone/door when a stranger intent on selling you something you don't want comes calling?

I pay for the phone for my convince, not sales people.

MRG

 

[JoeWras]

Dad was wise enough to know that "you don't get something for nothing" so he took it into his bank, not to cash or deposit it but to have someone look at it. They agreed that it was certainly suspicious and I think they made a police report.

I could have written that exact sentence.

Dad got the same scam and took it to his banker where he promptly told Dad it was bogus and shredded it for him. That banker has since left as the bank got absorbed by a bigger firm. For 10 years he kept my dad on the straight and narrow. Sometimes, there are good people out there who actually live up to their fiduciary duty. I was very grateful for this man.

Now I handle Dad's bank affairs. I'm still worried that something could slip through that I don't see - like a personal visit to Dad from a con artist, etc.

 

[spncity]

A scammer posed as a caller from AT&T International from India. He asked the elderly woman, "Don't you make a lot of calls to India?"

"Yes, I do!"

"Well, you've been so faithful in paying your bills, we have a reward for you! It's $20,000! In fact, to make things easy, if you give me your bank account numbers and we'll direct deposit the money into your account today in recognition of your good bill-paying record."

She gave the numbers and whatever other information they asked for. They lifted $100,000 out of the account.

(Her son related this story to a friend of mine).

Kindest regards.

 

[Walt34]

While I am confident her assets are well protected, it is not without considerable effort.

What I did with my mother was to open a new checking account and kept ~$500 in it at all times, and all the other stuff with account numbers and such went in a folder kept at my house. She made me joint on two checking accounts both with online access (new at the time) so I could watch from afar. Mom and my sisters were on board with this. I paid her rent, telephone, credit card bills when there were any, and the like from her main account. Mom never really grasped what "online access" was but it was okay with her if all three of us said that was okay.

The one with $500 was for her normal shopping for gifts, gas, cash from the ATM and whatnot but if someone scammed her out of it that would not have been an economic catastrophe. I lived 20 minutes away and once a week would visit to check up on things.

Of course, this only works if one has a trustworthy relative.

 

[ERD50]

A scammer posed as a caller from AT&T International from India. He asked the elderly woman, "Don't you make a lot of calls to India?"

"Yes, I do!"

"Well, you've been so faithful in paying your bills, we have a reward for you! It's $20,000! In fact, to make things easy, if you give me your bank account numbers and we'll direct deposit the money into your account today in recognition of your good bill-paying record."

She gave the numbers and whatever other information they asked for. They lifted $100,000 out of the account.

(Her son related this story to a friend of mine).

Kindest regards.

Your bank account number (and routing #) is on every check you write. Lots of people have that info - how do they get $100,000 out with nothing but your account #?

Sounds fishy, or something's missing?

-ERD50

 

[Walt34]

Your bank account number (and routing #) is on every check you write. Lots of people have that info - how do they get $100,000 out with nothing but your account #?

Sounds fishy, or something's missing?

-ERD50

It's quite simple. They create a forged withdrawal slip, or a draft as one does to tie an account to say, Paypal, and present that to the bank. If reported to the bank within 60 days of being discovered the bank will (eventually) reimburse the funds after the account holder signs an affidavit of forgery.

Two key issues here: It must be reported to the bank within 60 days, and the account holder must go to the bank and a sign the affidavit. If they do those things they are made whole and the bank eats the loss if the bank cannot recover the funds.

This is a problem for people who never look at their bank statements.

 

[MichaelB]

What I did with my mother was to open a new checking account and kept ~$500 in it at all times, and all the other stuff with account numbers and such went in a folder kept at my house. She made me joint on two checking accounts both with online access (new at the time) so I could watch from afar. Mom and my sisters were on board with this. I paid her rent, telephone, credit card bills when there were any, and the like from her main account. Mom never really grasped what "online access" was but it was okay with her if all three of us said that was okay.

The one with $500 was for her normal shopping for gifts, gas, cash from the ATM and whatnot but if someone scammed her out of it that would not have been an economic catastrophe. I lived 20 minutes away and once a week would visit to check up on things.

Of course, this only works if one has a trustworthy relative.

This is exactly how we do it. GMTA

 

[Accidental Retiree]

A close friend, then in her late 70s, received a phone call from a nice Nigerian man, who informed her she had won a brand new white BMW convertible. All she had to do was send him a money order for $500 and she'd be all set.

Her daughter found out about the scam after a local cab driver, whom my friend had called for a ride to the post office for the M.O., turned the cab around and told my friend's daughter what had happened. (Good thing my friend is so chatty.)

The nice Nigerian man kept calling my friend, so the daughter had the phone number changed. The nice Nigerian man got angry and ended up calling around the whole rural neighborhood, looking for my friend.

Neighbors had to change their phone numbers, and of course bank accounts were changed.

No one could tell my friend that she in fact had NOT won the BMW. Well, I take that back. Many people told her; she just wouldn't believe any of us, and some of them are people she's known for 25 years or more.

And of course, my friend doesn't even have her driver's license any longer. She had to surrender it.

And yet, she is still deemed competent to make these decisions and she will be allowed to send all the $500 money orders she can send, if she can find a cab driver to take her.

I love my friend, and it grieves me to see how her judgment has diminished, but not yet to the point that anyone else can take away her rights to make these decisions.

 

[MRG]

Accidental retiree,
My sister was able to get the cab company to agree they were to call her cell anytime DF called for a ride. They are in a small town so it works for us.

I feel for all involved, that stage of life is so very challenging.

MRG

 

[robnplunder]

A close friend, then in her late 70s, received a phone call from a nice Nigerian man, who informed her she had won a brand new white BMW convertible. All she had to do was send him a money order for $500 and she'd be all set.

Her daughter found out about the scam after a local cab driver, whom my friend had called for a ride to the post office for the M.O., turned the cab around and told my friend's daughter what had happened. (Good thing my friend is so chatty.)

The nice Nigerian man kept calling my friend, so the daughter had the phone number changed. The nice Nigerian man got angry and ended up calling around the whole rural neighborhood, looking for my friend.

Neighbors had to change their phone numbers, and of course bank accounts were changed.

No one could tell my friend that she in fact had NOT won the BMW. Well, I take that back. Many people told her; she just wouldn't believe any of us, and some of them are people she's known for 25 years or more.

And of course, my friend doesn't even have her driver's license any longer. She had to surrender it.

And yet, she is still deemed competent to make these decisions and she will be allowed to send all the $500 money orders she can send, if she can find a cab driver to take her.

I love my friend, and it grieves me to see how her judgment has diminished, but not yet to the point that anyone else can take away her rights to make these decisions.

There's an FBI number to call for suspected internet fraud. I reported one myself. Mentioning the "FBI" or police would have scared off the Nigerian for good. I don't understand why people ended up changing their phone numbers - most phone companies can block specific numbers.

 

[spncity]

Supply any suspicious numbers to the postal inspection service.

The reason for this: The Postal Inspector can block a specific 876 number from calling in to "all" numbers of the U.S.

Of course the scammers have lots of phone numbers.

But it may help the postal inspectors build a case when that number is being contacted by accomplices in the U.S.

So, sometimes changing the victim's number and making it unlisted, or in extreme cases giving the elder a cell phone with parental controls, is the only way to stop the calls. (And blocking all 876 or all international calls.)

When a relative of ours was involved, this is basically what it took, and then scammers started calling the adult children! They knew names, addresses of the family members of the elderly scam victim - who had willingly shared the information with the "nice man with the honest-sounding voice."

Kindest regards.

 

[ERD50]

Originally Posted by ERD50 View Post
Your bank account number (and routing #) is on every check you write. Lots of people have that info - how do they get $100,000 out with nothing but your account #?

Sounds fishy, or something's missing?

-ERD50

It's quite simple. They create a forged withdrawal slip, or a draft as one does to tie an account to say, Paypal, and present that to the bank. If reported to the bank within 60 days of being discovered the bank will (eventually) reimburse the funds after the account holder signs an affidavit of forgery.

Two key issues here: It must be reported to the bank within 60 days, and the account holder must go to the bank and a sign the affidavit. If they do those things they are made whole and the bank eats the loss if the bank cannot recover the funds.

This is a problem for people who never look at their bank statements.

So this is a problem for anyone who writes checks? Anyone who handles the check could grab those #s and start a withdrawal?

I guess I don't understand why the scammers go to the effort to call hundreds/thousands of people trying to get one of them to give up this information? It seems easier to just intercept the numbers somewhere along the way. I don't write many checks anymore, but lots of people do.

-ERD50

 

[M Paquette]

So this is a problem for anyone who writes checks? Anyone who handles the check could grab those #s and start a withdrawal?

Yup. A person can use just the information on the check to initiate an Automated Clearing House (ACH) direct debit transfer. Some companies do this when you send them a check, scanning and (hopefully) destroying the check and doing an immediate ACH transfer. I've even had one retail business do this with a check I handed them. They zipped it through the scanner, stamped PAID on the bill and check, and handed the scanned check back to me.

For this type of transaction the payee has to be authorized by the payor to do the direct debit. Handing them a check is considered sufficient authorization.

Naturally, the Bad Guys lie about being authorized when they use your check info.

The easiest way to steal the check info is just to swipe the outgoing mail from your mailbox. Drive along looking for that red flag, grab, and go. There will be a check in those bills being paid.

The easiest way to prevent this is to use electronic payment, and post any physical bill payment with checks in them to a post office or postal mail box. (Thieves are lazy. Post Office mailboxes are hard to get into without being obvious.) When setting up electronic payment, don't give the payee your checking account information. Use your bank's bill payment system to 'push' payments to the payee, or give the payee a credit card (preferably cash back!) that you will then pay off monthly.

 

[MRG]

To that point, after a check is written to say a financial institution, people seldom touch or look at it. It is amazing what mail rooms do with checks, never knew paper could move that fast.

MRG

 

[fidler4]

My mom got a phone call recently from someone who claimed to be working for Microsoft, and offering to help her with her computer problems. Fortunately, some of my distrust of people who call on the phone has rubbed off on her, and she didn't him give any information. I imagine what the guy was after was to get into her computer and possibly get enough info for identity theft, or to get her credit card number to pay for "technical assistance".

My brother-in-laws mom got a similar call. The guy told her that her computer was infected with viruses and he needed to remove them from her computer. She gave him her credit card number and email. He charged her $160 and it sounds like he remoted into her computer. Luckily she told us about it so I had her cancel her credit card and we reset her computer back to its original configuration. It was a new computer that she just used to check her email and play games on. Luckily she doesn't do online banking. The CC company cancelled the charge so she wasn't out any money.

 

[growing_older]

Originally Posted by kyounge1956
My mom got a phone call recently from someone who claimed to be working for Microsoft, and offering to help her with her computer problems. Fortunately, some of my distrust of people who call on the phone has rubbed off on her, and she didn't him give any information. I imagine what the guy was after was to get into her computer and possibly get enough info for identity theft, or to get her credit card number to pay for "technical assistance".

I've gotten a similar call. The caller was incredulous when I told him I wasn't interested. I don't know if that's part of the script, if they really are successful such a high percentage of the time that refusal is unusual, or I'm on a list of super suckers from which they almost always get their way. I wish there was more I could do to identify such callers and stop their future efforts.

 

[tryan]

My friends grandfather got the "your grandson's in jail and needs bail money" call. Thankfully he called is son (my friends father) and the problem resolved itself.

Posted on another thread ... my tenant fell for the "here's a check now wire some of it back" scam. They will ask for less than 5k because banks can "sit" on a 5k credit for 9 business days. But less than 5k has be be posted the next day (even if the check will bounce). In this case she was told she was employed by Walmart to check and grade stores. Her first "paycheck" was for too much ... hence " you need to wire some back now, now, now". The scammers then called her from a resort where they were partying with her money.

But it gets BETTER ... the bank believed she in on the scam and filed charges against her since her account didn't have the funds to carry the wire. So to avoid fraud charges she agreed to pay them $50/month until the debt was paid in full. Yes the rent was late that month.

 

[spncity]

Scams may be able to be written off

According to the US Postal Inspection service, if your relative has been scammed, you may be able to write the loss off as Theft on the tax return.

Here is the info: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p547.pdf

The theft has to be more than ten percent of income to bother.

Kindest regards.