What did the client do?
He wired the girlfriend more money, about $8,000 over the next week. It appears that he is still providing money to a third party.
What part does loneliness play in a scammer’s success?
It is a huge driving factor, and we see it more and more—more than anything else—especially in men. They are of an age and a demographic when they are used to being taken care of a bit, and often the caregiver essentially takes the place of the spouse, so men might be more endearing toward them financially.
Even with family exploitation, when there is an adult child living with the parent, even though that child is bleeding them dry emotionally and financially, the parent doesn’t want to give up that relationship. If the child leaves, they are alone. One thing many organizations, AARP and others, suggest is that older people expand their support base—go to church, join a book club, a bridge club, do volunteer work. Then you’re not sitting around shopping or chatting with people online.
What gets elderly users of social media in trouble?
This is an age group that tends to be oversharers on Facebook, Google, and other sites that are very easily accessed. Scammers can piece together where they live, where their grandkids live, whether they are traveling, and much more. With 15 minutes and $10, a scammer can go into Intellius.com and get date of birth, driver’s license numbers … it’s all available online. If they call in to a financial firm’s online service center, it’s very easy for them to impersonate people.
Educating a parent is important, without sounding condescending. It can be helpful to say, “Hey, look at this, people are still falling for this IRS scam,” and make sure they know that the IRS doesn’t call people and doesn’t proactively reach out, that Microsoft will never call you on the phone and say there’s something wrong with your computer. And say, “I’ll let you know if there’s something wrong with your computer, and I’ll take it in.” A lot of times it’s easier if the information comes from one of their peers.
What kind of abuse do you see when family is involved?
An older person might think, I’ll just give my son his inheritance early, not realizing that they, the parent, might have a financial need at some point, might need nursing home care or rehab. But they have family members pressuring them for money.
Where we have the most success [in resolving issues] is with known-person elder abuse and financial exploitation, because it’s not always malicious. You have caregivers that might not be emotionally equipped or financially equipped to be caregivers, so $10 or $15 taken here or there turns into $100. Or we have people who have a power of attorney or trustees, and they don’t necessarily understand the legal ramifications of that role. They may not be maliciously doing things wrong. Maybe they are reimbursing themselves after paying out of pocket. It might look bad on paper. We can have them work with counselors, social workers, get them in touch with community resources.
What are you seeing in cases of outright fraud?
We’ll see some scammers start small. You’ll see a charge for $1.73 on someone’s account as a test, and then every month you’ll see a $19.99 charge, and it will go on for years. After doing this to 1,000 people at $19.99 a month for five years, that’s a pretty good income.
But the hardest thing we have now are scams being perpetrated on seniors in bulk. A scammer will take $15,000 or $150,000 and can move it from bank to bank and out of the country very quickly. Once it leaves the country, it’s almost impossible to get those funds back.
In one instance, we had a client wire out funds [to a scammer], and when the daughter brought it to our attention, a week or so had already passed. That’s a lifetime in the movement of funds through banks. The money went to Canada, then China. But the scammer kept tapping that Canadian account, and whoever was perpetrating the fraud put more funds in the account, and we were able to retrieve them. Typically, they don’t use the same accounts over and over. We hit on the right day and got the funds out. That was luck.