From the Alvin and Rosalie Sarachek studio PBS Kansas presents Empowering Seniors Welcome to Empowering Seniors I'm your host Katherine Ambrose This is part two of our series on the Scammer Who Love Me And our first episode We talked about what is going on with scams out there romance scams and now we're going to talk about what is being done about it Welcome back Mary So great to have you Thank you So Mary tell us a little bit about the history of this and then what's being done about it Well if we go too far back in time we'll run out of time So let's start in the 70s in the 70s there was a scam called the Nigerian prince scam And what that evolved into was people beginning businesses or perhaps have having a certain level of wealth would get letters in the mail telling them that they had a fortune in Nigeria because of relatives business connections and that the only way to get to that fortune was to pay a fee to have it brought out of the country And that was kind of a joke In the 70s many of us received those letters Some of us fell for those letters But then with the advent of the internet their ability to scam was exponential And learning how to email people with false claims I received one the other day from Barnes and Noble telling me that they wanted to sell the book and there's just those little little tip offs such as Barnes and Noble booksellerscom They do not have a URL like that It's Barnes and Noble scum And so when you begin to notice these small things you increase your digital literacy But then as social networks exploded the romance scam was born The romance scam of looking at those socials knowing lots of lots of information in advance with which to manipulate people Interesting So the evolution of the Nigerian prince and now it's just gotten trickier and trickier Yes And I have to say Mary that you have to be pretty sophisticated to know oh they don't even have the Barnes and Nobles booksellerscom URL That's not the real one And so you know a lot of people could really fall for this especially when they went so badly for this communication to be the truth and not maybe have that sophistication on understanding what URLs are and to be suspicious and research it And you have to have your wits about you too because that's why older people can get even more take advantage of Yes And let's just say people of all ages are scams People of all ages are scammed What's different about targeting seniors is that they may get scammed out of more money And maybe they really want these things to be true They're a little more desperate to have the entertainment and the you know being rescued out of loneliness is something exciting And we have to talk about loneliness Loneliness is another epidemic in America We have a lot of seniors who are disconnected from social activities who are alone at home with their phone with their social media with their television and that becomes their lifeline And it's no replacement for actual face to face conversation like we're having right now For instance I'm learning so much about you today and you're learning so much about me that we would never see or experience online And it is just such an opportunity for scammers to help to to hurt seniors So it's intriguing to me about what you said Is that face to face Yes Real faces And you know you might say belly to belly face to face belly to belly Yeah So I know you're real and you know I'm real We can touch each other We're in the same room And so there's a real danger in being isolated in your own home or feeling isolated wherever you are You could be in a room of people and feel isolated But I think mostly it's people that are isolated at home Yes you know sometimes you know people are like I don't want to move I don't want to leave my home And they might not realize that it makes them more susceptible Has they get more vulnerable cognitively?

Yes And emotionally that they're setting their future selves up their future fragile self up to be victimized like this And then the fallout that's going to come from that Absolutely And so isolation in your home is very dangerous And that's why I am a fan of cohort living or multi gen living where you are living with other people or other people around you Or if you are in your own home alone that's fine But can you be your own social activities director and leave your house?

I believe yes you've got to leave your house You've got to stay socially connected And when you are no longer able or grandma's no longer able staying home alone is a very dangerous place to be And I really believe that I've thrown my heart and soul into this work since 2018 and I just really believe that to be true Well you and I are on the same wavelength with that And I would say to your viewers that if they do find themselves alone Reach out reach out make make lunch appointments And if you and if you can't leave your apartment or your home invite people over have card games have discussions read books together But if you can leave your home join a senior center join a puzzle group or a card group or a knitting group any place in which you are talking to people Just so If someone's talking to you online you'll have someone to bounce that off of who can give you another perspective That's not really how online works anyway Online is the purpose of it is that you're already connected with these people or you meet someone that becomes a real life friend a real life business contact If there aren't people that are really online and savvy that are having relationships with people that they don't know in real life And so I think that's the difference So we're going to get back to Shereen where she's going to tell us more about what she's learned from this journey and what's being done to tackle it We're back talking about this scammer who loved me and how to find out more about what's being done to break down these hustle kingdoms and take down the scammers So we're going to talk about the tips and tricks and tools to fight scamming but also what our government is doing about it as well Shari and thank you for being back Thank you for having me again So when people fall for a scam they send money off and then they realize this isn't true What are some of the feelings what are some of the things that people have shared with you?

Like I feel like a fool My family doesn't trust me anymore They think I'm a fool That's it They In fact some of them don't even want to tell their families if their families do somehow find out which we've had incidents like in the nursing home where grandma has said oh I got an online boyfriend just like my granddaughter did Oh my goodness Mom comes storming up to the nursing home and what do you mean?

And they find all these and that the scammers don't want cash They want cards they want Razer Gold cards Apple Pay cards those type of things Or they may ask you to do Bitcoin And I've done a both Bitcoin I did not like it The cards you go to the story buy them you scratch off the back and then you can take your phone and upload it They like those Apple cards I guess you can only buy Apple stuff but I guess they buy the merchandise and maybe sell it on the street I don't know Well exactly They don't reveal their secrets much I can only speculate what they're doing send your experience Maybe not asking you to wire cash or wire funds They've got these kind of weird ways of asking for money what are some of the stories that you've heard as far as what people have done that links that they've gone to to send this money off?

Okay one of the stories my initial one and when I was naive and that was a year ago because I just started having a presence online was a supposedly orthopedic surgeon And there seems to be a myriad of those orthopedic surgeons It's not a fake one or any doctor or cherry generals Oh That's military generals contact Yeah he was on a boat for you know and Unicef boat through the United Nations Humanitarians Yeah Pulls on your heartstrings Oh he's doing a wonderful job But he didn't have access to his money And the reason he didn't have access on his money Because this contract had been going on for three years And when he left he had been married but his wife filed for divorce and she just signed the papers And this is supposedly in the state of California None of this is real right?

Get that?

When she left the attorney's office she was in a car accident and was killed He also had a 15 year old son who was in boarding school in Europe In England area He didn't have access to his money because the courts had it all locked up for some reason Anyway please send me money I I can't talk to you anymore on the internet without you sending me not money but Apple Card or Razer Gold cards preferred Razer goal for some reason I've never heard of that yeah it's a gaming card and I don't know what how they do it or how they convert this into money but they do know how to go out and get it Yeah It's almost like they're writing a secret romance novel It's just a romance novel between two people and it's full of intrigue and mystery And you're like wow Oh that's So that's why I think the title's so good The scammer who loved me and said they proposed love and just wooed people in I've had this happen to men to not just women Oh yes Yeah It happens to men And that that's the ones that are more when it they realize that it's not real The men seem to be more devastated Oh even more depressed than the women because they're sending nude pictures and sex and they think they're having a romance with That's another thing Girl overseas You did mention that sending nude pictures One guy one wanted sex Text me He wanted me to send picture He sent a picture of himself that more than one did I would not send pictures Never sent pictures that you don't want your your children or your grandchildren to see because they will sell it on the black That's awful Yes and they fret because they have vetted you They know where you when work or where were you go like to church or they will threaten to send those nude pictures just to extort from you more money And so you just get deeper and deeper Oh you can and it turns into threats oftentimes Yes the first rule I have now after my learning experience is never send them anything money wise or or you know cards or anything Bok bok bok Now you think oh I blocked them That's the end of it No it's not They will come on your email because they'll have access to that or they will a pop up somewhere else on TikTok Because now your title client they get more money out there on their own So And you you had involvement with the FBI What is the US government trying to do to help citizens?

Okay I found out that you need to go to the website FBI I see three And there you can report your scam or whatever happened to you You give your name and then it's all confidential And I have done that for several of these guys at least six six of them And whether I lost money or not I report that to the FBI It is 4 or 5 pages and you submit it online But that's the end I've never heard I've never been contacted personally I don't know what happened but I do read in the paper and I did see that there was a South Korean HK type situation that the government got involved in this but several governments have to be involved because often the United States does not have any jurisdiction in Nigeria or anything So they have to get that government involved And and but they caught the South Koreans and then they supposedly went to jail and prosecuted Have you ever talked to like the district attorney?

Because I think this is I know this is something that the district attorney's office would be interested in the KBI Yes There's other government organizations that can be reported I do I am aware of the district attorney's office and in fact it's on my to do list to contact them because they they have a education program where they go around they get people like me and other people that have had criminal activity against them been victims And they talk to different places businesses I have not done that yet And you know what kind of do it this is interesting but yes Okay I did not call the police although my local police I did let them know I was expecting one guy was going to send me a package And I did not give him my home address to deliver it I gave them the police department So I contacted my local police and said I up being a suspect scammed And if a package does arrive it's And it's unmarked or you don't know who this person is and it's me And I gave them my name Shereen And how to get Ahold of me I never got a call from the local police They didn't have package What were they supposed to send you?

Supposedly gold bars and money And And he had a picture and it was money and he flipped it This was another doctor out of New York But the gold bars they they were in a box and they looked like gold bars but they probably were bricks wrapped with gold foil And the money was probably fake money just thin paper It was probably not real dollars And they can do all of these things with AI so they can use artificial intelligence to write the notes back and forth They can use that to fake a video fake a photo and so they can get really really tricky So how did you feel when you were involved in some of these?

Where you were you thinking these might be real people or you were just curious enough to play along?

Tell us what happened?

I yeah the first victim I was involved with him and I gave him some money And of course when you do that they all come out of the woodwork There's more There's just Yeah The whole hustle kingdom comes alive They're gone Yeah we got one So they all went the next one was the the guy that I thought was a podcaster And then I realized no the story just does not jive It just doesn't make sense So but I played along with it And because I was doing research for this book and so I played him with a little bit of money to get some more information The last one started this and thanks at Thanksgiving time and it took a month but then the love bomb started I mean he loved me He started saying that within a month after that he wasn't wanted to come He wanted to marry me This was a a security officer supposedly on a platform an oil rig A lot of them are oil riggers and they can easily get pictures off the internet of oil rigs and and people that look like him because they usually have to wear a uniform and a helmet So it's hard to see their features all that But anyway he he really wanted to marry me and he was getting off his contract in end of February and he'll come and marry me then And you're a very intelligent woman What do you think caused you to kind of fall for the romance?

Oh the I'm a good hearted compassionate person but 13 years ago I was left suddenly a widow And that was on a December 1st a 14 days before our daughter was to be married And she was married because she was married an Air Force guy And they a month later they left for England where his duty station was that is in my profile I have a website that till I have that story on that website So they saw that Oh boy And also I am trained a master from Dave Ramsey master class and boot camp and I adhere to the seven baby steps which the seventh one is a millionaire And I've got that on there And I said how my income went that December 1st from two incomes that are almost equal down to one But I still had the same debt I still had the house the mortgage the two cars the timeshare never get involved also $10000 worth of credit card debt I owe to myself Not my husband He was smart smarter than I but I got I use my way my experience in auditing financial auditing accounting and that to get myself out within a year of debt Wow And I am debt free and will never go back But even though these guys that I would talk to Oh just take out a loan Not me Never never would mortgage my house but they saw that she's a baby step millionaire She's claiming she's a millionaire And so they're just seeing dollar signs?

Yeah she's got money In fact oftentimes they would say when I refused I know you got the money They didn't know a thing Because I also double protect all my Well I don't keep my bank account on my cell phone It's on my laptop that information And it is triple protected Basically I've even notified my bank that I'm a scammer And if this person tries to access my account please let me know Block it somehow And banks are pretty good about their spot in this stuff and and helping people They've saved a lot of people a lot Thank you so much Because you're going to save a lot of people by sharing your story and sharing your research And it's good work that you're doing Well thank you Katherine the reason I did this and I got talk to Mary about I want to educate people This has become my passion Because if we can get this $2 billion industry in the US and $430 billion industry worldwide down way down I'd like to see it Zero But that's my goal But you know that's a pie in the sky But that's wonderful That's what I want You never dreamed doing financial coaching would turn into scam coaching Anti scam coaching Well thank you so much It's so great to have you and Mary And now we're going to get back to our conversation with Mary Mary let's talk about the fallout What happens when people realize they've been victimized and also our country being victimized like this So what's being done about it?

I'm glad you brought that up because I'm a boomer and my generation is being attacked and I don't like that I think that the fallout of what is happening for instance when this happens most of the time there's such shame attached to it the feeling like a fool the feeling like you've let down people the feeling of losing maybe most or all of your generational wealth that you were planning on giving to your grandchildren The terrible crushing feeling that must have for a senior because they have no opportunity to make it up again?

It's devastating Absolutely It is really tough when you're retired Do you have that nest egg or you just have your monthly income and that's six and there's not a way to replace it?

No If you send it off to a fake Nigerian prince it's not there to fund your care and to fund your happy life And to help the people You really want to help Yes absolutely And so if I could help the viewers today I would say get educated read books about this learn about what it means to have digital literacy Because I would assume Mary that you don't want seniors to be afraid of the internet You just want them to understand it And you're right Sometimes I come off as sounding like it's you know World War three on the internet The internet is just a mirror of life We have beautiful things in our world and we have terrible things I'm pointing out some of the terrible things so that we can have more of the beautiful things because there are beautiful things online and there's so much really that you can use for enrichment but not these fake romance No more fake romance So what do you feel like the FBI and other you know top officials are doing to try to stop this?

Honestly they they have their hands tied because there are so little controls over the internet and there's so little control that they have over international commerce Yeah And they have their jurisdiction And so many of this these scams are happening from overseas It's very difficult for them to help The best thing they can do is what they're doing which is collecting information So if any of your viewers have been scammed I urge them to get online and report it to the FBI Very good Or call call your local district attorney's office They want these calls They've shared that with our audiences before they do want to help people And I know they're very frustrated by these things And so people need to watch out for each other too because they have these secret romances or the secret I'm in a win published this clearinghouse but I'm not allowed to tell anybody In the senior living community where I live I'm not allowed to tell my family And so when you're asked to keep secrets that's a red flag I think as seniors we're in our age of wisdom Where in our age of leadership and guiding our families And this is the opposite of that that you know if we're giving money away to a scammer There's a lot of shame around that There's a lot of just emotional stress and duress and it's very easy not to tell people that it's so important to do so So what would you say to someone that has been scammed to encourage them?

Number one I would tell them it's not your fault It is not your fault You've been scammed You've been scammed by a professional Number two take time to take care of you and think and reflect upon how you got there and hopefully learn from that and not let it happen again Number three report it Absolutely report it And if you're feeling strong enough to do sell tell your family what happened Tell your family Be honest and life will go on The scammers will be gone but your family will still be there Why do you think it's important to share with your family and not keep that secret?

Because it it breaks the control A person that has gone through a romance scam has been in an abusive relationship and they don't even know it and they need to break that control and come back to their family and to themselves What would you tell the adult kids or the allies that have had a loved one scammed?

That's a great question Please don't call them stupid Don't be angry with them They're already broken inside Try to understand what happened and try to give your parent more resources Visit them more often Get them involved I firmly believe a lot of this has to do with supportive situation and a support of self love that can be engendered by the support of family I think you nailed it Mary Thank you so much for being on our show You're welcome Thank you so much This means a lot to me Thank you You're doing amazing work And you're creating a wonderful legacy that's going to help a lot of people Thank you And thank you so much for watching our program If you have questions about this topic if you have suggestions for future show we would love to hear from you Just reach out to us online at EmpoweringSeniors@kpts.org or call the station I'm Katherine Ambrose and I'll see you on the next Empowering Seniors