We all look forward to retirement as we get older, but sometimes it can become a lonely and isolating experience. If there is no longer a spouse or partner, it makes it even harder to fill the day. With the help of social media, it was a great way to connect with friends. Unfortunately, social media has now become a great way for scammers to connect with the lonely elderly. The scammers slowly become friends with the person online with commonalities and compliments. They take the relationship offline to texting so that they now have the victims personal phone number. The lonely victim looks forward to the numerous texts they receive all day from the scammer because family and friends are not able to provide that much attention. Then the scammers start demanding money through gift cards in order to solve a desperate situation and to keep the relationship going. They lead the victim to believe that they cannot trust family or friends in order to isolate them even more. The manipulation takes over their lives and the victims wake up desperately looking forward to receiving that first text of the day. There are many promises made of marriage to keep the relationship going but there is always the issue of money that prevents them from coming to meet in person. The stories become more ridiculous, but the victim is so far invested in the relationship that friends and family are looked at with disdain for insinuating that the person is a scammer. This has been my mother’s story for the past 3 years; she has given them approximately $130,000 dollars. She has gotten angry and dumped one but another one steps in within a week. For the past year they have been General’s in the United States Army, General Paul LaCamera and General Richard Clarke. I called the local recruiting office for the Army, and they kindly spoke to my mother to explain they were scammers, but she is too far in to believe anyone but them. They claim they do not have access to their own money. I am not sure how this will end but I will continue to wake up every day to fight these scammers from stealing my mother’s money. At first, I was angry with my mother, but I realized that was the wrong approach. My best advice in this situation is to remain calm and kindly try to reason with the person who is being scammed because the reason they got to where they are is because of isolation and loneliness.
They advised her that it was a scam, and they would not accept the checks. What would have happened is the scammer would have asked for a gift card or money back from part of the deposit and the bank must make the funds available to the account holder within a couple of days. It might take the bank a week or more to discover the fake check, but the account holder is then responsible to repay the bank for the funds. A lot of the fake check scams come from employment offers as well, I was recently told that someone was contacted to do paid reviews for Yelp, but Yelp has a policy of not paying people for reviews. I think in these situations it is best to go with your gut feeling and to have a conversation with your banker before depositing checks that come from a company that you are unsure of their intentions. I found the picture above on the Better Business Bureau website where they have an in-depth article about fake check scams. Please share your story so we as a community can be well informed of the ongoing scams.
Terri Proctor/Founder
Stop Elderly Scams