Last year, Americans lost more than $12 billion, all to scams.

That's according to the Federal Trade Commission.

The agency found that seniors in their 70s lost the most.

One of these victims is Mary Ellen Strange, who lives across the river from Louisville.

She encountered a highly sophisticated scam since her money was stolen last year.

She has spoken out freely about her loss to her local women's golf club and even national news media.

Our June Lefler met her at her home this summer.

Mary Ellen Strange lives in southern Indiana with her dog, Bella.

Last year, she got a pesky spam call claiming to be Amazon.

She wasn't falling for it.

And I said, this is crazy.

This is not me.

No, I didn't buy a MacBook Pro and ship it to New York, and I don't have time for this right now.

And I hung up the phone.

But hours later, she wanted to make sure no one was making purchases with her account.

A gentleman answered the phone and he said all the same things to me.

And he.

He added to that there were some charges of, child pornography purchases made in my name.

And that got my attention because I didn't call back the original caller.

I googled Amazon fraud unit and called them over seven weeks.

Scammers posing as federal authorities took nearly $400,000 from strange.

They came to her door and she gave them whatever they asked for.

My handler knew where the nearest crypto machine was to my house two blocks away.

He instructed me where to go and what to do.

And it seems crazy, of course, when I look back on it now.

But at the time, he gave me the impression, that he was trying to help me.

This was how he was documenting my money to present to the court that I was not money laundering.

I had access to that money and I could prove it.

She thought this would end with official documents proving her innocence to crimes she never committed.

No, he never confirmed the meeting.

I never heard from him again.

No one showed up on Monday.

And that's when I reached out to my family member and said, I think I'm in trouble.

Of course, I felt embarrassed, I felt stupid, I felt ignorant, I felt all those negative things, and I wanted to kill myself.

When I first realized what had happened.

What made it worse is that she now has to pay $100,000 to the IRS for the pretax money she took out of her retirement.

I mean, I don't think you should ever be taxed for money that was stolen from you.

It's not right.

She hopes congressional action will solve her tax situation, but she never expects to recoup the money that was stolen.

She has been able to turn a once shameful situation into a lesson for others.

I think it does help me to share my story.

For.

For me, it's healing.

And also, it's it's something I feel like I need to do to help other people.

I don't want it to happen to anyone else.

Strange has partnered with AARP to share her cautionary yet empowering tale far and wide.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm June Leffler.

Wow, what a story.

Though her scammers scare her to secrecy, Mary Ellen Strange did confide in her family once she realized what had happened, including a relative who she says is a former FBI agent.

She is now working with the FBI on an investigation, though she does not expect to get her money back.