SCAM CAN HAPPEN ANYTIME ANYPLACE TO ANYONE

 

“Ma’am, we’re going to close the bank. Are you waiting for someone?”

Being the last client left inside the bank before it closed that day, Lina (not her real name) was the very picture of despair: anxiety etching on her face while crossed hands clutching a pouch close to her chest. Seemingly unmindful of what was going on around her, she was staring through the glass door as if lying in wait for someone to pop up.

“I’m waiting for someone who has the key to this locked pouch. All my money is inside this pouch. She let me use this pouch with a lock so that my money will be safe.”

“She” and Lina met inside the bank that day. In her 70s, Lina withdrew every month the remittance of her daughter working abroad. Like any typical parent, Lina would never miss in boasting that she’s the proud mother of a successful daughter to other clients in the bank. “She” was among the crowd of clients that day getting a load of Lina’s storyline.

“She said she’ll come back at once with the key to open this pouch.”

Flashing on a likely scam, the bank called the police straight away which then ripped open the locked pouch. What they found inside the pouch shocked Lina – bundles of pieces of paper. She shed bitter tears.

SCAMMED RIGHT INSIDE THE BANK

The police investigation revealed that a young female scammer, posing as a bank client, befriended Lina inside the bank that day. The two chatted while waiting in line for their respective transactions. After Lina had withdrawn her money, the scammer offered a locked pouch where Lina could put her money safely. Lina thanked her and put all her money inside the pouch. The scammer locked the pouch and handed Lina, unknown to her, a different identical pouch through a sleight of the scammer’s hands. The scammer kept the key obviously to delay a bit the discovery of the scam-in-progress. Then, she hurriedly left the bank telling Lina she’d get back at once. The scam breezed through in less than an hour.

We may be stunned by that scam. Wait until you go through this cheekier version. Naty (not her real name) met someone outside the bank posing as a roommate of Naty’s daughter working abroad. After withdrawing her money, Naty invited the scammer for a lunch at home. The two got back to the bank in the afternoon. Being a regular client, Naty even introduced to her chummy bank staff the scammer who gave them chocolates from abroad.

To cut this story to the bone, Naty withdrew her whole time deposits and turned them over to the scammer to invest in a project she'd given the nod during lunchtime. Both went out of the bank together in high spirits.  Just right before the bank would close, guess who came to the door in tears -- Naty, who at the end of the day found out that all her retirement money had gone down the drain.

SCAMMERS ARE WINNING

The above close-encounter-of-the-nerd-kind scam we may think of as a so plain-as-the-nose-on-our-face scheme that only softies would be taken for a ride. Not so fast. The following February 2022 headline by the online The Paypers speaks volumes:

“Scammers Are Winning: EUR 41.3 (USD 47.8) Billion Lost in Scams, Up 15%”

“With the Covid-19 pandemic, the scam industry has boomed worldwide. In ScamAdviser’s 3^rd Global State of Scam Report, 42 countries were analyzed on the number of people scammed, the amount of money lost, and how national governments, consumer authorities, and law enforcement are combating scams.”

  Growing massively to 266 million scams in 2020 and breaking new grounds in all places, armies of scammers -- sly, devious, and cunning – have kept on hammering out surprising ways to con people out of their money: by way of investment, pensions, phone, post & email, doorstep, and relationship scams, to name the most common.

Let’s hear it from Jim (not his real name), convicted on charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud who has worked with the good guys of the Federal Trade Commission as he told Doug Shadel of the AARP The Magazine in his article “Confessions of a Con Artist”:

“You might be thinking, ‘Oh, those get-rich-quick scams are obvious, and I would never fall for one.’ […] But here’s the thing: I didn’t want to talk to stupid people, because stupid people don’t have $50,000 lying around to give me. You would be amazed at how many doctors, lawyers, engineers, and college professors I ripped off. The bottom line is that fraud is a crime that can happen to anyone, given the right con man and a victim with the right set of circumstances.”

SCAMMING THE SENATE PRESIDENT

It happened to Senate President Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri. As Philstar reported:

“A 23-year-old and a 46-year-old man have been arrested in connection with the scam try, where they posed as Siquijor Gov. Jake Vincent Villa and Board Member Abner Lomongo and tried to get up to P60,000 from Zubiri. The two were arrested in an entrapment operation.”

ME TOO

            A week ago, it happened to me. My niece got a message from “Me” on her private messenger. “Me” was not me, and the message was not mine. Someone has been using my Facebook public photo and profile. Below is the scammer’s unedited message:

“I’m just wondering if you’ve heard about the International Fund (IMF) COVID-19 financial relief and fund recovery grant program going on around now.

“They are affiliated with the world bank authorized recently to assist us in paying bills, to retired and senior citizen also help start business and for other reasons just after the covid pandemic haven’t you heard about them as well?

“A friend of mine introduced them to me recently, I couldn’t believe until I got the grant delivered to my doorstep too, I got $75,000 after I applied and it doesn’t need to be paid back and everyone is eligible to apply for this opportunity.

“Should I share you this link to the attorney in charge so that you can apply as well?

“I’m enjoying my vacation trip at Singapore.

“I’m just trying to share the blessings that God has done to me.”

All at once, my niece blocked the scammer. Had she pursued and replied because she had believed the message came from me, she would have landed in the following situation similar to the five-year-old case reported in CBS This Morning’s “Facebook Scam Warning: Thieves Use Your Friends’ Identities To Steal Cash.”

THE CASE OF AN IDENTITY THEFT

Like my niece, Shelly Drummond found a profile for a friend from years back named Deborah Boyd who was telling her about a so-called government grant she’d gotten through an agent (attorney in charge in my case) on Facebook. Sure enough, the agent then told Drummond she could get financial assistance from the government. All she had to do was provide some personal information, then send $1,500 in fees to get up to $100,000 in grant money. Drummond wired the fees to Florida, then waited for the delivery driver like the one shown on Facebook to deliver her $100,000 in cash. They never came.

When she tracked down her friend Boyd by phone, she said, “Shelley, it wasn’t me.” It turned out Boyd’s Facebook account had been hacked by scammers who locked her out and then quickly reached out to try to con her family and friends.

Emma Fletcher of Better Business Bureau said, “They’re basically capturing that trust you have in this person and using it for their own gain.”

CBS news team found a network of grants offering from $50K to $1M by agents with stolen FB profiles. One profile was from a real estate agent from Vermont; another, a real MIT professor. One declined to comment on the case; the other was shocked by what she saw.

Computer expert Gary Malevsky set up a way in tracking the scammers and showed the process to the CBS news team.  The results: the scammers were found to be located in Lagos, Nigeria.

Facebook hasn’t solved Boyd’s problem then: The scammers still have a fake profile up with her name and she’s locked out from her FB account.

Delving into my case, Facebook may have made headway in coming to the defense of its netizens today: My FB account is not hacked and I’m not locked out. Though the scammers still have my fake FB profile up, it’s something that they can do to anyone.

Let me wrap up this article by sharing this tip I stumbled upon on the internet before my wife and I set off to the US embassy for our scheduled interview: Keep silent when you’re inside the US Embassy building; an audio device could be set up under your seat. (Real or imagined, it’s nothing-to-lose practical advice.)

In the same fashion, to the likes of Lina and Naty: Keep silent when you’re inside the bank; the next person sitting beside you could be a scammer.

Head still photo courtesy of Tima Miroshnichenko at pexelsdotcom