the financial advice columnist who gave $50k in a shoebox to a scammer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know why no one has mentioned yet that the CIA doesn't even operate in the U.S. and financial crime is not even within their scope. Scammers, next time fake being FBI.

While the CIA doesn't investigate US citizens, they DO actually do work in the US.

[Anonymous]

OK I totally want to listen to this

“I thought of an old This American Life episode about a woman whose Social Security card was stolen. No matter how many times she closed her bank accounts and opened new ones, her identity thief kept draining them, destroying her credit and her sanity. (It turned out to be her boyfriend.)”

[Anonymous]

I used to own a regional title company. An insane amount of money would pass through our escrow accounts so we were common targets of social engineering fraud, where someone tries to convince you to send money fraudulently. We ran every software detection you can think of and literally did weekly quick company wide trainings on the topic.

We were tracking over 100 fraudulent emails trying to steal the escrow money PER MONTH, PER EMPLOYEE. That is insane.

We are a long way from where we the prince of some made up country. My mantra was constantly, don't ever click a link that you don't know for certain what is on the other side.

It was an office environment. The best ones that I can recall off the top of my head were all trojans that you installed by clicking on a link. Here is a sampling:

Fake Fedex/ UPS tracking link
Fake attachment of a real estate contract
Fake unsubscribe button
Fake internal emails
Fale secure emails (like it looks like a secure email and you click the link to bring you to the secure email portal and the link itself was the trojan)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know why no one has mentioned yet that the CIA doesn't even operate in the U.S. and financial crime is not even within their scope. Scammers, next time fake being FBI.

While the CIA doesn't investigate US citizens, they DO actually do work in the US.

I mean, I don't work for the CIA, excuse me for not using proper language, super-spy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know why no one has mentioned yet that the CIA doesn't even operate in the U.S. and financial crime is not even within their scope. Scammers, next time fake being FBI.

Yes, this among other things in the story, were are easily Google-able. You wouldn't even have to hang up the phone to do that.

I don't know that I'd say I would never fall for any scam. Some can be pretty well-done. I had one call that was supposedly from the fraud prevention department at my bank. They were asking about suspicious charges. That's not out of the ordinary. It's happened before. And they had exactly the right script. Very efficient and businesslike. But it got weird when they texted me a two factor authentication code and then wanted me to read it to them. And I did, even after saying, "It says right here that Bank will never ask for this" and he replied that it was ok they just needed to make sure I was getting the messages. Then he told me I needed to enter a code on my phone to make sure I got the fraud prevention alerts as texts. That's when I said, yeah, I don't understand that. I'll go ahead and hang up and call back. I did and my bank said they hadn't called me and there were no fraudulent charges. So it was clearly a scam/hack type attempt. The good news is that I'm on pretty high alert now and realize that the whole professional and correct "script" was their method to put me at ease. And fraudulent charges are something the average consumer is happy to be alerted about and therefore is cooperative in resolving the issue.

I still don't think I'd give $50k in a shoebox to someone.

[Anonymous]

I fell for a scam called health insurance in America.

[Anonymous]

I almost fell for a scam, and I was a 35 year old attorney. Someone called claiming to be from Apple, saying my account was hacked. I started to follow the person’s urgent instructions, but my husband was in the kitchen with me and gave me a skeptical look. I thought it was fishy that the person had a foreign accent and was in a noisy call center. I asked “how do I know this isn’t a scam?” and the person hung up.

[Anonymous]

I think she made this up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK I totally want to listen to this

“I thought of an old This American Life episode about a woman whose Social Security card was stolen. No matter how many times she closed her bank accounts and opened new ones, her identity thief kept draining them, destroying her credit and her sanity. (It turned out to be her boyfriend.)”

I remember this episode and it was insane!

[Anonymous]

PSA: Victims of Fraud are no longer able to deduct the loss on their taxes. (Related to the article, she makes mention of this and I hope her CPA was aware of the change because otherwise she’s going to have another problem)

The 2017 Trump Era Tax cuts removed ability to offset phishing/fraud on your taxes. There have been multiple stories recently of people who gave their tax deferred accounts to scammers and now owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes to the IRS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my law firm we have cyber security training twice a year. Two things have been burned into my brain as red flags - an urgency of time, and large sums of money.

There are other red flags of course, but those are the two that always pop out to me. My firm sends out phishing emails to us to check if we fall for them or report them as a phish alert (we are to hit the Phish Alert Report button on any email we're unsure of).

Two weeks ago I got an email from my manager telling me a client wanted me to review them and I was to click a link, enter my username and password and then would get a link to the survey. When I double-checked what the email address was it said [e-mail]. And I thought "but we have SO MANY managers here - they wouldn't have given him that email address, it doesn't follow our format." Then I realized his email didn't say which client it was. Never mind how weird it would be for a client to ask their attorney's legal secretary to review them.

So there are red flags. You just have to listen louder to them than whatever the person on the phone or in the email is telling you.

My law firm does this, too, and then a while later you get an email saying "You caught a phish!" Always gives a little thrill (although I also reported a legitimate CLE email that looked scammy, ha).

An acquaintance fell for a scam and bought gift cards for her boss, which turned out not to be her boss, but this was several years ago before the scam was so well-known. I don't remember the exact amount, but it was in the thousands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PSA: Victims of Fraud are no longer able to deduct the loss on their taxes. (Related to the article, she makes mention of this and I hope her CPA was aware of the change because otherwise she’s going to have another problem)

The 2017 Trump Era Tax cuts removed ability to offset phishing/fraud on your taxes. There have been multiple stories recently of people who gave their tax deferred accounts to scammers and now owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes to the IRS.

Someone mentioned this in the comments to the article and the author got really defensive and said she’s writing it off as a casualty loss, not a theft loss. Seems like a bit of a loophole if she’s able to do it.

So if I understand, she was planning on paying this $50k to the IRS. Instead, she gives it to scammers. She’s able to deduct the loss from her taxes, thereby lowering her taxes. So if effect, she’s sort of whole, no?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PSA: Victims of Fraud are no longer able to deduct the loss on their taxes. (Related to the article, she makes mention of this and I hope her CPA was aware of the change because otherwise she’s going to have another problem)

The 2017 Trump Era Tax cuts removed ability to offset phishing/fraud on your taxes. There have been multiple stories recently of people who gave their tax deferred accounts to scammers and now owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes to the IRS.

Someone mentioned this in the comments to the article and the author got really defensive and said she’s writing it off as a casualty loss, not a theft loss. Seems like a bit of a loophole if she’s able to do it.

So if I understand, she was planning on paying this $50k to the IRS. Instead, she gives it to scammers. She’s able to deduct the loss from her taxes, thereby lowering her taxes. So if effect, she’s sort of whole, no?

I’m not a tax professional, this is not advice yada yada. It is my understanding this no longer flies. I don’t know anything about deducting it as a casualty loss, as pre-2018 there used to exist a specific deduction. Given she’s independently wealthy, maybe her CPA instead of being behind the times is exploring ways to exploit a loophole. Maybe because it was physical cash she handed over? Maybe they are hoping that given her total earning package, they’ll let it slide? No idea.
This WaPo article talks more about it - https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/12/14/cyber-crime-scams-irs-taxes/

[Anonymous]

She got off lucky with losing just $50k, and it looks like she comes from a family of means so she has something to fall back on.
I am still chilled by the story of the retired federal worker in Silver Spring who was scammed out of $650,000 and then had to pay a huge sum of taxes on the lost money.

https://wapo.st/3I45KnW

[Anonymous]

While tons of people get scammed I don't believe a single word of her story. It is pure fantasy.