How Criminals Steal $37 Billion a Year from America’s Elderly

[ABX]

One strange old lady I live close to (who should know better) asks me almost daily 'is this a scam' about something she saw online or a call she got. Almost daily I repeat: "If you have to ask, it is a scam"..

Marjorie Jones trusted the man who called to tell her she’d won a sweepstakes prize, saying she could collect the winnings once she paid the taxes and fees. After she wired the first payment, he and other callers kept adding conditions to convince her to send more money. 


As the scheme progressed, Jones, who was legally blind and lived alone in a two-story house in Moss Bluff, Louisiana, depleted her savings, took out a reverse mortgage and cashed in a life insurance policy. She didn’t tell her family, not even the sister who lived next door. Scammers often push victims to keep promised winnings a secret, says an investigator who helped unravel this sinister effort to exploit an 82-year-old woman......

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-03/america-s-elderly-are-losing-37-billion-a-year-to-fraud?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email

[Restored]

Greedy azz old people. My aunt got taken in by one of these. Her desire to keep secrets from her family was her undoing.

[Applewood]

My aunt is in her 80s, no children, lives alone since my uncle passed on.  We nieces and nephews feel it's our duty to keep tabs on her, and I'm always alerting her to the latest scams.  It's not necessarily that she's greedy and she is savvy about a lot of things -- more so than many in her generation.  But that generation and older are still very trusting.  Heck, in their day, they used to leave their doors wide open even when they weren't home.  So they can fall prey to anything. 

Scammers also know that they can get away with their crimes because the elderly nan be too embarrassed or afraid to tell anyone they have been victimized.  I think a lot of victims think if they are scammed, their relatives will try to have them committed or take over their affairs.   My aunt knows that if she should fall for a scammer, she should not be afraid to tell me.

[Cyber Liberty]

This scam was attempted on my Mom.  I told her it's a "pigeon drop," the oldest scam in the book. When they called again she told them to deduct the taxes and such from the winnings and send the rest in a check.  When they told her they can't do that, she said "then just bring the cash over and I'll pay your cut out of that.  I'm easy."  They gave up on her, and she called the cops with the caller ID information.

Mom doesn't have any money to take from her.