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boon
Posts: 1
| Hi, I'm signed in under a new login. First off I apologize for the length of this. I'm desperately seeking any info that might help me. Particularly from law enforcement and banking (especially in Canada as that is where I am).
My 90 year old mother was scammed out of a lot of money over the last 2 months. What has me so angry is that the police were notified in Jan by a concerned postal worker that she was trying to wire transfer money to someone in Jamaica. The postal worker refused and called police (wish I knew who the postal worker was to thank him). Anyway police went and spoke with her but did not think to contact a family member of the incident. A police report was not filed however it is on file that they spoke with her. Had they contacted myself or my sister or even the manager of the seniors home she lives in at that time this whole mess could have been avoided.
Fast forward to now. We don't have all the pieces of the puzzle as right now mom is embarrassed and either is choosing not to tell us everything or actually can't remember. What we do know is that somehow she started a phone call relationship of sorts with some guy in Jamaica (he would have to speak excellent english with no accent or mom wouldn't have carried on the first conversation with him). We are gathering he of course new how to sweet talk and listen. How mom ended up with his number and started calling him his still a mystery and baffling. My mom has always been extremely too talkative to anyone about anything personal her entire life (a bone of contention among family for years). She has confessed to my brother in law that well she is lonely and he talked to her (more likely listened to her). However my mom has always been extremely smart and not gullible and very money conscience to the point of being tight. So the fact that this guy got as far as he did also is a wake up call to us that we are also dealing with some mental health issues like Alzheimer's. This is TOTALLY out of character for her.
What we do know is etransfers were made from both her chequing account and mostly savings over the course of a month, to one person. These were in the amounts of $1000-$3000 per transaction and done anywhere from everyday to every other day up to 4 or 5 days in between. It's added up to a huge amount of money gone. The crazy thing is mom did mention to me on Thurs morning that there seemed to be money coming out of her account and she didn't know to who or how and that she was going to the bank that day to check on it. She made it sound like is was only a few hundred. No big deal banks do make mistakes so I wasn't too concerned. I did suggest she take my sister or brother in law who live in the same city as her (I live 2.5 hours away). Mom is fiercely independent and of course took offence to that ( no surprise) so I dropped it. Well the bank called me later that day and informed me that mom had been in and there was a lot of money gone from moms account and they had started an investigation and had set up a meeting with her at her senior home for the next afternoon. They said mom insisted she didn't need a family member there for the meeting but the bank felt they wanted another family member there. I said yes someone would be there if not me either my sister or my brother in law.
My brother in law attended the meeting and it wasn't good. We found out about all these etransfers to someone. She has confessed to talking to this guy and we know from phone bills she has called him numerous times over the last month plus. We don't have record at this time of him calling her.
What has me livid is why the bank (or credit union) didn't red flag all these etransfers and how was this even possible when my mom has never ever done online banking in her life. She wouldn't have a clue how to. She has an email account as she is set up on facebook. Again she doesn't really know how to do much on fb she only uses it to see pictures of her grandkids etc. that live far away. She has never emailed in her life. So how could someone do etransfers from her bank and her accounts from another country?
There are also a few small amount items or things coming out of her bank via paypal. Again she's never had paypal. I googled a few of the codes used and from what I can tell it's codes used for people trying to gain financial info or something like that. I need to do more searching on that today. They show up as vpmbill.com or 2401code some were small debits of around $2.50. There were actually some credits on the paypal from pte.ltd. for .48 cents and .14 cents.
We are in left field trying to piece this together. The really sad part is I think this is going to end up sending my mom into a very bad depression. My sister said she is not in good shape right now. I am heading to the city today to help my sister deal with this. They did contact police Friday and we have an appointment tomorrow morning to take mom into the police to file a report. We are hoping she will be honest and forthcoming with whatever information she does know or remembers. We also hope to meet with the bank again tomorrow. Is there anyone on here that has been through this, works in banking or law that can give us insight on this.
Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 695
 
Location: Windoming | Wow, I don't have any advice for you. My 90 year old mom also got scammed, but fortunately she told me her little "secret" before she was out any money. She's poor, she doesn't have any money to lose! Her scam involved other elderly people that sent her personal checks for over $15,000 so she could pay the taxes on her "winnings'. They thought they were paying taxes on their winnings. Kind of like a pyramid! I told mom scammers prey on older people. She got all feisty and said, "They don't know how old I am!" I informed her that it was very simple to find out how old she is by using the internet.
I talked to a friend recently, and her mom got pulled into the "your car is out of warranty" crap. She paid $2600 for warranties on a car that maybe goes 100 miles a year. Fortunately, my friend was able to get the money back. She took her mom's phone away from her, she is in assisted living.
Keep us posted!
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 To the Left
Posts: 1865
Location: Florida | First thing is to go to get her account closed so there is no money left. then go for control of her finances. She will be depressed any way this plays out so try to save her money.
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 Take a Picture
Posts: 12838
 
| In the United States, this is considered mail fraud. They target older people especially talkative ones. I am older and live by myself. I got a letter wanting to give me $19,000,000. I took the letter to the post office. I doubt that you will be able to get the money back but there is always hope. Start with the police and talk to a government attorney. We have district attorneys in the US. You might try to talk to a postal inspector or some other higher up. This is the best advice I can give. Hope it helps |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 678
Location: Canada | I'd have a long chat with the bank and the fraud department. If your mom doesn't bank online first she'd need to call the 1800 number and sign up for online banking. Secondly she'd need to use her debit card number and pin to log in and she'd need to know how to add this person to her online banking contacts to send him money. All of which sounds like she doesn't know how to do so someone did it for her/him.
Then I'd be questioning the fraud department of the bank for never calling about the transactions. I bank online all the time and send and receive transfers. I had one held because it was a large transfer to a new email address so it was flagged.
If your mom agreed to the transfers and did in fact send them there isn't much you can do. You can go to the bank and have limits put on her withdrawal and sending amounts but she has to agree to them.
I'm sorry this happened and hope you get some traction on getting the person who did this. |
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 No Tune in a Bucket
Posts: 2935
Location: Texas | There are so many scams run on the elderly. My almost 92 year old mother got a call from someone that the said 'Grandma, I have been in a wreck, I am in jail and need $9000 to get out'. Of course, she says 'is this Joe?' and of course they say 'Yes, this is Joe'. They said don't call Mom and Dad. She didn't have that kind of cash money and but she was trying to figure out how to get it. At the end of the day, she finally calls my son to see if he is all right and of course he wasn't in Jail. He was out of town at a rodeo and called me to go check on her. We had gone to a basketball game for one my grandkids that night and she never even mentioned it to me. (because scammer told her not to) These people that prey on the elderly are real scum. I tell her not to give out information to people and while she thinks she is being careful. I want her to get rid of her land line but so far haven't been able to talk her in to it. I have tried to convince her that if any of her grandkids are in trouble that she would not be their first phone call. It is her money and she handles her own finances and doesn't want out help. There is only so much that you can do unless you want to try to prove them incompetant. |
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Folks on-line