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

[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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This actually explains it to me. I read her article with an open mind - but it seemed VERY hard to believe that an educated, logical, healthy, etc etc person would fall for this. I tried to understand. But now it makes sense. People from this kind of major family wealth and privilege really are oblivious to how a lot of the world works, even if they are smart and talented. It also explains why she wouldn’t have mentioned taking out $50k to her husband — because it wasn’t *actually* a big deal to them.

[Anonymous]

The use of AI will only increase these type of calls and make them so sophisticated. I was on a team call where one of the other team members had made an AI bot of our manager’s voice to run the meeting as a joke because she couldn’t join the call. It was very funny at first, sounded exactly like her, but then I started thinking of you used this bot in a regular phone call and now a video/facetime/zoom call where the other person just hears a voice, you could use this technology for so many scams like the ones where the caller claims they need help getting out of jail or are in the hospital or have been kidnapped.

[Anonymous]

It worked because of the psychological pressure of wanting the "problem" to be solved, she was focused on her kid (both his safety and halloween) and probably because once she was in deep after a few hours it is harder and harder to pull yourself out of it and admit to yourself that you are being manipulated.

[Anonymous]

Also, keeping you on the line is a total tell. I lived in China and there's lots of scams to see art or drink tea with someone. If they can keep you, you get in deeper. If you walk out or break away or rudely brush them off from the get go, they move on to the next person.

[Anonymous]

I read the article and it is a scam far more sophisticated than any I’d hear of before. Her mistake was trying to manage it herself regardless of what they said about not involving anyone else. It wasn’t a kidnapping. Give her credit for being open about it and educating others about how sophisticated these scumbags are. She’s taking a lot of flak but she deserves our thanks.