'She Hooked Me': How an Online Scam Cost a Senior Citizen His Life's Savings

[usonian]

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/online-scammer-steals-live-savings-6a510f6d?st=gpkbcpilu4avay5&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Thanks to DU user Zorro for the gift link!!!

It began with a notification: A user wanted to connect on LinkedIn, and sent a note saying she thought the man’s profile was impressive.

She seemed polite and attractive. The man, a 75-year-old professional who lives in the American Midwest, replied.

That was the start of a monthslong nightmare that emptied his retirement fund and drove him to the brink of suicide. He is one of millions of people globally to fall victim to “pig butchering,” a form of fraud in which scammers seduce strangers online, build their trust and convince them to put money into bogus investments.

They take the money and ghost their victims.

Read and be safe out there.
Line from "Taxi": "America's one tough town"
And the internet is crazy dangerous if you aren't careful.

[Lonestarblue]

1. My rules: never send money to anyone you don't know and do your own research on investments.

Anything that sounds too good to be true likely isn’t.

[walkingman]

2. Maybe I'm naive but....

to me this person has to be very lonely or
has dementia or
is very lonely and has dementia.

Very sad.

[usonian]

3. That describes a lot of seniors, sorry to say.

One of the above or something similar.

[ColinC]

7. Which makes the crime even more heinous imho

Taking advantage of people who you know are vulnerable is among the most despicable things a person can do.

[slightlv]

8. That's the name of the game, tho!

Take advantage of people you know who are more than likely vulnerable. It does take a special kind of evil. We, here, in the house of the dancing zoo, are openly giving, without question... but only to those we know or are known as family of those friends. Hubby will reach out to those he doesn't know when the situation arises, if he thinks we can help. And that's where I and my cynicism comes into watch mode. I don't like to be the heavy... but this stuff comes at you in email, on social media, in phone calls, and now we're even being inundated with "government official-looking" warning letters in the USPS. Some have raised my adrenalin level until I do the research, but I detest what they do to my hubby. He's too good a man to be put through those stress-raising hormones coursing through this system. And one recently had a very good female friend of mine in panicked hysterics until I talked her down. And she's over 10 years YOUNGER than me. It's always the good people who are taken advantage of because most of us are trusting at heart; we believe in the goodness of people. I think a lot of older people (like my darlin') haven't been able to make the leap of going from the way things used to be in the 60's, to the way base evil of too many people today.

[rampartc]

4. just as likely "greedy"

plenty of "lonely hearts" scammers out there but "pig butchering" involves making the rube believe he will be making large returns on investment.

[Ocelot II]

5. Exactly the sort of target the scammers look for.

Not necessarily a person with dementia, but someone who is lonely, not very sophisticated about money and investments but who has saved up enough of a nest egg to be worth scamming, probably not tech-savvy either, and who doesn't have anyone close who can advise them. I can't imagine being sucked into a scheme like that - not that I'm especially clever, but I'm such a cynical old cow that I don't trust anybody. But scams targeting seniors are everywhere, and we should all be very, very careful.

[MOMFUDSKI]

6. Few years ago I spoke to a gal at the pool

who said her uncle lost everything to some woman similarly to this story! He didn’t tell the family until it was too late

[SWBTATTReg]

9. Hey, this is where maybe a little advice is nice, that if you have an elderly parent or grandparent, try to convince

them to some have kind of safeguards on their deposits/savings/etc., before they spend it all, that is, have the bank or institution put some blocks on honoring checks larger than, lets say $300 dollars, and no checks out of their primary investment account, unless you make a physical trip to the bank along w/ your financial guardian. Perhaps there are additional ways / methods that we can use too that I'm unaware of.

Gee, I feel so bad for this guy. If only he had communicated w/ a friend or someone in his hometown...

[ShazzieB]

10. This sounds a lot like catfishing.

Catfishing is usually romance based, but it works in a similar way: gain someone's trust (often a senior) then gradually start hitting them up for money.

With catfishing, tales of woe are often used to convince the mark that the person they think is the love of their life is in some dire situation that they desperately need money to get out of. It's ugly and horrible, and so is this "pig butchering" thing.