Help Me Stop Senior Scams
This month I begin a very important mission and I need every one of my readers to help.
Your participation will hopefully protect your identity and the safety of your fellow seniors.
Seniors are often the target of telephone or email scams because the older generation was brought up to be more trusting. They are also at the time of their lives when, after years of saving and investing, they have built up money for “a rainy day” or have gathered a nice “nest egg” to help their family if they are in need.
Scam artists posing as their grandchildren or representatives of grandchildren, call seniors, asking them to send money for an emergency. Hundreds of seniors have been victimized across North America and we need to spread the information as far and wide as possible in order to alert our seniors and catch the culprits.
My mission is to publish on my website in my newsletters and my BLOGas much information as possible so that my readers are aware of “scams” that are flooding our nation; I will not name the victims only the crime. This is were YOUR HELP IS NEEDED I would like you to visit this web page if you or someone you know has been subject to a telephone or email scam? I would also like you to send this newsletter to as many of your friends and family as possible and ask them to pass it along to their contact list.
THINGS TO REMEMBER:
RECEIVED FROM THE SON OF A SENIOR:
My father received a phone call from a person claiming to be an attorney in Montreal representing his grandson. There had been an accident in which his grandson had been involved with alcohol being a factor. If Dad could send $4600 via Western Union, then they could clear this matter up and his grandson would have no record. Then, a person who sounded very much like his grandson was put on the line, asked Dad not to contact his father, and said he could pay Dad back when he got home because he had $5000 in the bank. Dad agreed to send the money and was told that the “attorney” would phone back in a couple of hours to verify the money had been sent. Which he did.
About 3 hours later, after the second call, another call from the same “attorney” to tell Dad that the other party in the accident needed more money to get this incident settled. Another $4600 was requested.
Dad told them that he could not afford that amount again, whereupon the price for that was cut in half. And, Dad realized that he was being scammed. And demanded his money back. He also called his grandson’s father and verified that his grandson was in Calgary, not Montreal.
He then re-visited the Western Union office which is in the Wal-Mart Store in Olds, AB. He found that the Money Order had been picked up and cashed in Montreal at a Money Mart there.
Dad and I reported this to the local RCMP the following morning and gave them a statement. However, no formal police report was filed and we we given the phone number and website address for the AntiFraud Centre.I have a friend that works for the RCMP in Calgary and I contacted her to find out if there was a Police group looking into this fraud. There is but there has been no further contact with me.
We have had questions as to how the folks running this scam have been able to get the information needed to pull it off. For instance, his grandson is a student and although his Father is in close contact with Dad and I, we only see or hear from him occasionally.
Do the fraudsters have access to school, college, tech school, or university databases?
Are they gleaning information from social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter?
Do the offices of Western Union and Money Mart in Montreal have Surveillance Cameras as does the Western Union here? Montreal is too far, cost wise, for us to travel and try to recover same. And the fraudsters have that in mind.
Apparently, Western Union has been fined in the USA for failing to train their people to recognize folks in this particular situation. And if their offices are being sited in Wal-Marts, Wal-Mart needs to be advised of this as well.
If, through CARP, I could find retired police officers across the country willing to assist, I bet that this could be shut down within a month.
Here’s how it could work: Publicize the scam through CARP and your blog. Ask the members to report any occurrence or attempted occurrence of the scam, either to them or folks they know. Have officers assist the police in retrieving the security tapes in the places where the money orders are cashed. Find the routing of the money and shut down that system.
Dad was contacted and given an Ontario phone number to call back when the money was sent. That was inoperative the next day. But, someone had to sell that phone somewhere and the number had to be recorded to operative. Did the same person purchase others? which may still be in use?
Can You Help or Have Information that will Help Others? Contact me though this web page and let’s get started! By speaking out you will educate your friends, loved ones, peers and local community to be able to recognize and identify a scam. Help me in my endeavour to protect seniors against scam artists.
I LOOK FORWARD TO HEAR FROM YOU.
