It’s scary how people try to take advantage of the elderly. Excuse my timid phrasing.
What I should have said is, it’s scary how folks out there are trying to rob old people.
Someone I know who is in his 90s recently received a letter in the mail informing him that he had won $50,000 in a sweepstakes. Attached to the congratulatory letter was a check for $3,100.
My elderly friend contacted his son, partly to rejoice in his good fortune and partly to ask for his son’s help in determining what should be their next step.
The son smelled a rat, of course, but he decided to see just where this scam would lead them.
Acting as though he was his father, the son contacted the toll-free number contained in the letter and reached someone named Paul Hall.
Hall confirmed that, indeed, the man was a $50,000 sweepstakes winner and the enclosed check of $3,100 was sent to pay taxes on the prize money.
How nice of them.
Hall instructed the son to keep this information confidential and encouraged him to deposit the check immediately. He then asked my friend to call back later to confirm the deposit.
The father and son never did deposit the check, but they called Hall back the next day and said they had taken the check to the bank.
Hall said he was going to transfer them to his accounting department for more instructions.
A lady named Sharon, with an English accent, said that before she could release the $50,000 in prize money, the Salisbury man would have to go to a Western Union location and wire $2,950 of the $3,100 the elderly man had deposited the day before.
The money was supposed to be wired to Sarah Jones at 51 St. Paul’s Way, London, England.
When the son, still acting as though he was the father, reminded Sharon that the check had been for $3,100 and asked why there was a discrepancy, she said the extra $150 would cover the Western Union fee and help to reimburse him for his time.
Again, how nice.
Sharon told the man to tell Western Union he was wiring the $2,950 to a relative in England. She then instructed him to call Hall again with the receipt number for the wire transfer.
Once Hall had the number for the wire transfer, the sweepstakes company would release the $50,000 in prize money, which the winner should receive by UPS or Fed Ex in a couple of days.
The Salisbury man and his father never wired any money or called Hall back. “As far as we know, he is waiting on our call,” the son said.
Incredibly, about a week later, someone else tried to prey on the same elderly gentleman.
This time he received a telephone call one afternoon from a man who said the Salisburian was the winner of $2.5 million. The man on the telephone asked if he could stop by the father’s house in an hour with the winning check.
The father said sure and, meanwhile, called his son and asked him to be at the house with him when the check arrived.
They waited for a couple of hours before the son, knowing again it was all fishy, decided to call the toll-free number the caller had given his father.
The woman on the other line had a Jamaican accent. The son described the telephone call his father had received and asked when the man would arrive with the $2.5 million.
The woman asked him whether he had wired the money for shipping and handling charges. The delivery man was waiting to hear that the $490 to cover the charges had been wired.
The son asked for the name of the company the woman was working for. After some hesitation, the woman answered, “Win World International.”
How had it come to pass that his father won the $2.5 million, he asked.
His name had been randomly chosen in an international sweepstakes, the woman said.
What was the name of the sweepstakes? “Publishing Clearing,” she answered.
Is that legitimate, the son wanted to know.
“Oh, we’re legitimate,” she said.
The Salisbury man learned the woman wanted money for the handling charges wired to the “International Credit Union” in Jamaica. Finally, the son had heard enough and told her off.
“It’s a shame you’re doing this to people,” he said, hanging up.
Later that night, his father received another call from a man confirming he was ready to deliver the $2.5 million check once the handling charges were paid.
The son documented both scam attempts and wrote letters to the Salisbury Police Department, Rowan County Sheriff’s Office, N.C. Attorney General and Federal Trade Commission.
He has learned that one of the first things law enforcement does is try to shut down the toll-free numbers, but he knows it probably is a temporary fix until the scammers receive a new one.
“You can’t really police these things very well,” he said.
The man’s father fit the profile to be robbed. He is elderly. He has some assets. He likes to enter contests. He’s home most of the time. He answers his telephone, and he doesn’t take complete written or mental notes about his telephone conversations.
But he does know to ask for his son’s help when something sounds too good to be true.