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

[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?

This reminds me of the old Seinfeld "They just write it off Jerry!" bit.

No, if you deduct something, that just means you don't have to pay taxes on that amount, not that the IRS gives it back to you. That would be a refundable tax credit.

Based on her story and likely tax bracket, she could probably save 1/3 of that in taxes due, combining federal and state and city. Maybe up to 40% max. So say max $20k she would get back (or more likely not have to pay since she said she is a freelancer paying quarterly taxes) in 2024 (assuming this happened in 2023).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

This reminds me of the old Seinfeld "They just write it off Jerry!" bit.

No, if you deduct something, that just means you don't have to pay taxes on that amount, not that the IRS gives it back to you. That would be a refundable tax credit.

Based on her story and likely tax bracket, she could probably save 1/3 of that in taxes due, combining federal and state and city. Maybe up to 40% max. So say max $20k she would get back (or more likely not have to pay since she said she is a freelancer paying quarterly taxes) in 2024 (assuming this happened in 2023).

PP here- this is assuming she could actually deduct the $50k loss. Don't know about the legality if that, seems murky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are a fool if you fall for these. Im seen 3-4 like the article and had a half dozen others. The moment they break out the large money, the urgency, etc, you say I need to call my lawyer and we will call you right back. they always say you cant tell anybody, including lawyer. That's always the tell. And then you can just taunt, belittle and abuse them after that.

I suggest you don’t taunt and belittle them. Now they are using AI to capture your voice, inflections and using your voice to scam people who know you and think they are talking to you. Just hang up.


My physician relative nearly fell for a call from the “FBI” about her credentials being used to place fraudulent prescriptions. They sounded really professional and of course my relative wanted to cooperate with the “authorities.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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

Yeah there’s a lot of chatter on Twitter that she went to Miss Porter’s and Columbia and is the treasurer of her family foundation. People went poking around and found that she’s a journalist, her DH works at a nonprofit, but their place in Brooklyn is $$$. She deleted her Twitter account because she’s taking so much sh!t for this. I’m the one in the duplicate thread that got locked who said I would rather die than admit this to anyone, but there are a lot of people saying this was a good thing for her to write to warn people.

[Anonymous]

Hello IRS? I have an anonymous tip for you...

[Anonymous]

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

Wow, thanks for linking this, it has a lot of similarities to what happened to Cowles. However, the tax issues are different because it seems like this lady sold stock to transfer the money to the scammers, whereas Cowles took cash out of a savings account.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

This one? https://www.thisamericanlife.org/587/the-perils-of-intimacy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think she made this up.

If she did…

[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.

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.

+1 I don’t usually answer calls from numbers I don’t recognize, but my DS was in the ICU so I took the call from “Fraud Prevention” at my bank in case it was the hospital. They had me check the number they were calling from, and it matched the number in the card. They were remarkably credible, and I was vulnerable because of DS in ICU. I don’t remember how long we spoke, but the caller eventually hung up when I insisted on calling my local bank to verify.

A real person at my bank branch walked me through the process of freezing/changing all of my accounts. I didn’t lose anything, but I believe the bank verified that my account has been breached or somehow accessed unexpectedly.

The caller was remarkably professional and very convincing.

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry, I’m not going to sit here and say anyone could fall for this. Maybe accitdentalky clicking on a phishing link, sure. But not a scam of this magnitude. There is something specific to this woman’s, as in her lack of street smarts, that got her into this situation. If I get a call telling me that my children and I are in danger, handing a shoebox with $50k in it won’t make me feel safe. A huge swarm of police officers outside my front door will.

[Anonymous]

I work for an IT consulting firm and a manager in our IT security department fell for a phishing scam on his home computer. He also put his ego aside and shared his story to help people learn. People who think they won’t fall for scams are the same people who think they would never leave a baby in a car. That’s the whole point - the human brain is fallible and can be manipulated, especially when you are outside of your routine or faced with urgency.

My boomer parents act like petulant teenagers when I try to tell them about new scams and phishing techniques we learn about at work and it scares the heck out of me. “I know, I know, leave me alone, we’re not idiots.” People who are both cognitively declining AND really defensive about how smart/savvy/street smart they are are actually the most vulnerable. My mom had her Facebook log in compromised because she was reading and clicking on links from her email from her phone - and her eyesight is not sharp enough to pick up tell tale signs of Phishing. Then she didn’t AGAIN for her cell phone account because she was pouting and acting like a toddler when I asked her not to pay bills or do anything financial from her phone. And now that they have been so defensive when I try to share things that people my age and younger have fallen victim to and what to watch out for, I am scared they will be tens of thousands of dollars into a scam before they admit to me what happened or ask for help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

+1 I don’t usually answer calls from numbers I don’t recognize, but my DS was in the ICU so I took the call from “Fraud Prevention” at my bank in case it was the hospital. They had me check the number they were calling from, and it matched the number in the card. They were remarkably credible, and I was vulnerable because of DS in ICU. I don’t remember how long we spoke, but the caller eventually hung up when I insisted on calling my local bank to verify.

A real person at my bank branch walked me through the process of freezing/changing all of my accounts. I didn’t lose anything, but I believe the bank verified that my account has been breached or somehow accessed unexpectedly.

The caller was remarkably professional and very convincing.

When I've had my CC fraud prevention call me, I always tell them, sorry but I need to hang up and call the number on my card to get thru to this department. They never have an issue, as that is exactly what one should do. The fraudulent people are able to make the call look like it's coming from your real bank/credit card company/etc. So I never give any information on a call that I did not initiate

[Anonymous]

People who think they won’t fall for scams are the same people who think they would never leave a baby in a car. That’s the whole point - the human brain is fallible and can be manipulated, especially when you are outside of your routine or faced with urgency.

Cowles even mentions Gene Weingarten’s famous Washington Post Magazine article about this and says it made her want to become a journalist.

I agree that most people wouldn’t fall for this particular scam, but I think the larger point is that these guys are getting really good at this and there’s a scam out there that almost anyone could fall for. And when you’ve been on the phone for hours with someone you deem an authority figure you can say or do anything (see also false confessions.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

+1 I don’t usually answer calls from numbers I don’t recognize, but my DS was in the ICU so I took the call from “Fraud Prevention” at my bank in case it was the hospital. They had me check the number they were calling from, and it matched the number in the card. They were remarkably credible, and I was vulnerable because of DS in ICU. I don’t remember how long we spoke, but the caller eventually hung up when I insisted on calling my local bank to verify.

A real person at my bank branch walked me through the process of freezing/changing all of my accounts. I didn’t lose anything, but I believe the bank verified that my account has been breached or somehow accessed unexpectedly.

The caller was remarkably professional and very convincing.

When I've had my CC fraud prevention call me, I always tell them, sorry but I need to hang up and call the number on my card to get thru to this department. They never have an issue, as that is exactly what one should do. The fraudulent people are able to make the call look like it's coming from your real bank/credit card company/etc. So I never give any information on a call that I did initiate

I'm the previous PP and this is best practice/good advice. If I hadn't been driving and answered via speakerphone I likely would have thought it through and done the same. I definitely will in the future. I think it would be a good idea for banks to suggest this.

[Anonymous]

My work sends out the phishing scams too. One of my employees falls for it every single time. I get warning emails about it too and he has to take extra trainings. Grrr. He’s just not detail oriented in anything he does.