 |
Several years ago, my father in law – a pretty shrewd man – called in a panic. “I just got the strangest call,” he said. “It was from my grandson, calling to say he was wrongly put in jail and needed me to send money to get out.”
That sounded even stranger to me, because I had just talked with my son and he wasn’t anywhere near the place where he was allegedly behind bars. So I made a few calls and discovered that not only was my son doing just fine at the time, but these kinds of calls were becoming common – and today are even more sophisticated.
What happens is the scammers call and impersonate a grandchild – or another close relative – in a crisis situation, asking for immediate financial assistance. Sometimes these callers “spoof” the caller ID to make a call appear to be coming from someone they know, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
In March, the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged 25 Canadian nationals with defrauding elderly individuals in more than 40 states with this scam. However, that’s far from the only crime targeting senior citizens – who got us here and deserve to be respected for it – by scam artists with no sense of ethics nor integrity.
Before my uncle passed away last year, he met a woman online and began chatting it up over his phone, which is wild to think about since my uncle couldn’t use a computer and keyboard to save his life. The woman eventually asked for money, then some more. He was several hundred dollars down before his daughter got wind of it and stopped the insanity.
A more modern scam was recently shared on the Murphy Mouth 2.0 Facebook page. The post starts with, “Can everybody check on their elderly friends and family?” then goes on to explain why.
“I work in a gas station that has a Bitcoin machine, and unfortunately had an elderly woman in the store trying to put money in it, while on the phone with a probable scam artist. I tried to get more information from her, but she was reluctant to tell me anything other than when I mentioned to her that she is probably getting scammed that she agreed with me,” the post reads.
“I called every gas station that I thought would have a Bitcoin machine and spoke with all the cashiers, trying to stop this poor woman. I hope we all got into her head that she was getting scammed. I know times are tough, and the last thing people need in their lives is getting scammed out of their hard-earned money. My own grandfather fell for the schemes, and I know it sounds like you have won the jackpot, but I promise it’s only lies.”
How bad has that problem become? People ages 60 and older filed more than 16,000 complaints of cryptocurrency fraud in 2023 and reported losing $1.6 billion, according to the FBI. Overall, a total of $5.6 billion was stolen via crypto scams in the United States that year, with the average victim losing $5,000.
And what’s the vehicle of choice for these scammers? Crypto ATMs.
There are plenty of other scams aimed at seniors. Some want them to pay a fee for allegedly missing jury duty. Others promise a huge financial windfall after smaller up-front costs are paid. Still more pretend they’re with the Internal Revenue Service and you owe back taxes.
All should have raised red flags.
That’s exactly why, as the online poster said, we need to keep a look out for our family and friends who are getting up there in age. Since many scam artists aren’t even located in the country, it can be nearly impossible to track them down and hold them accountable for their crimes. Tighter state and federal regulations on crypto machines would be beneficial, but the biggest way to help is to hopefully stop it before it ever begins.
David Brown is publisher of the Cherokee Scout. Call him at 828-837-5122 or email dbrown@cherokeescout.com.