By Sheree Ellingson
Yesterday my mom fell victim to a scammer. Of all the people in the world, she would be the last person I would think that would fall for a scam. You see, she may be 87 years old, but she is fully cognizant and very suspicious of everything and everyone. She reads the newspaper and watches the news daily; generally, she tells me about all the recent scams for me to watch out for.
This is how it happened. Around 1:30 pm, she gets a call from a person who sounds just like my son Chris (her grandson) saying he was in a car accident and is very hurt. Supposedly hit his head on the steering wheel and broke his nose. This person kept calling constantly for two hours saying each time that “my son” needs money for help. Each time he called; he made the situation sound worse. This had my mom so confused she couldn’t think straight, all she could think about was that Chris was badly hurt and needed her to help him. “This person” told my mom to go to the bank and pull out $3000.00 and an Uber driver will come pick up the money from her to take to my son Chris. Because she felt like this was so real, she followed “this person’s” instructions. After this “Uber” driver came and picked up the money, she called Chris to see how badly hurt he was and to tell him she sent him the money. My son says, “Nana, I haven’t been in an accident and if I had been, Bea (Chris’ wife) would have called her.
That’s when she realized she had been scammed. She called the police and reported it. The FBI had also been notified but it was too late for her to get her money back. In these cases, the person never gets caught and money is never returned.
The worst part about this was not the loss of the money but the loss of my mom’s dignity, her belief in herself has been diminished, she is now fearful to answer the phone or answer her door. This took away some of her independence and that cannot be brought back.
Please, if you are a child of a senior, give them several scenarios of what to expect on a phone call, text or internet scam. Give them an option on what to do if someone calls them, such as, call the wife of your son to verify an accident. The more each of us do to protect our loved ones and ourselves from these thieves, the harder it will be for them to take advantage of our loved ones.