Scammers go to great lengths to try to trick people into falling for very inventive cons. I ought to know. My dad was one of the unfortunate victims who had fallen prey. A scammer predator took him for $7,000. Once given up, there was little my dad could do to try to get the money back. My belief is my dad was targeted due, at the time, to his suffering from dementia. My dad has since passed on.
But, just as happened to my dad, the same sort of thing can happen to most anyone. The elderly, in my view, are especially vulnerable.
I’ve been targeted too, though unsuccessfully. I once received a quite legitimate-looking email that came from what looked to be an acquaintance. The email text said something to the effect that the person on the other end is in a foreign country, has gotten into trouble and is in need of money to get them out of the jam they’re in.
To find out more, I contacted another person that also knew the person identified as the one needing help and I asked if this was legit. His reply? “No.” The suspect email immediately got deleted. Though happening years ago, I haven’t received emails of a similar nature since.
In trying to hoodwink the unsuspecting, scammers don’t just reach out via email. They’ll use whatever contact tool is available. For them, the phone call and in-person visit can be just as effective. As for incoming phone calls, if it’s from a number I don’t recognize, I don’t answer and let it go to voicemail. Lately, I’ve gotten a flurry of calls from people expressing interest in buying my house. I don’t deal with them. For any such voice messages left, all get deleted.
A bamboozle near-hit
So, through a friend I learned of a situation whereby a package delivered to this one homeowner’s front doorstep was one that the homeowner had not even ordered. Thinking the item may be a gift from a relative or friend, the homeowner proceeded to open the package. After making a number of inquiries, it was learned that no one in the homeowner’s close circle of friends or relatives had ordered any such item. Yet, all the package receiver printed on-label address information was a match. The item went to exactly the person it was addressed to.
The item was apparently ordered from an online shopping service. Once it was determined that the item had been sent by what appeared to have been a mistake, efforts were made to have the package returned. It was at this point that a series of missteps were made coming just short of the homeowner falling for a scam which could have cost this homeowner dearly if not for the alertness of one key player in all of this — an intuitive and alert intervening store clerk.
In the homeowner’s haste to have the item returned, this person went online at the suggestion of another to get in contact with the sending party’s customer service department. So, via a phone call made, the homeowner, thinking that the sending party’s customer service department was reached, the supposed customer service representative gave a series of instructions to the homeowner which, if followed, would allow for the item in question’s return.
At first, according to what I was told, all appeared to be on the up-and-up. Well, that is, until it was learned otherwise. The person with whom the homeowner was talking, it turns out, wasn’t legit.
It was at this point that things could have gone really awry.
The homeowner in this case was instructed to go to a local retail establishment to purchase a number of gift cards in designated dollar amounts and then to have certain pertinent data entered on each individual card, that information then conveyed to the supposed customer service representative who had maintained constant phone contact while all of this was going on.
In the presence of the astute retail store clerk, and in sizing up the situation, the store clerk had inquired of the homeowner as to what the gift cards were being used for. That’s when the clerk told the homeowner to end the call and that this play was a scam. The homeowner did as told.
This is one of those hard-lessons-learned cases and should serve as a wake-up call and a reminder for one to always be on one’s guard to protect one’s interest and to recognize a scam when one sees one. There is no such thing as being too careful where potentially being a scam victim is concerned.