First off, the neighbor is no dummy. Highly educated, been an international exec, done extraordinarily well financially and personally.

He got a phone call from someone claiming to be from his bank’s fraud department. David Ronson… or some such “common name.” Caller claimed neighbor’s personal accounts were “being attacked by persons who have stolen your identity… we can’t stop them because they appear to BE you in our system.”

He asked the caller how he can verify he’s with the bank. “Look at the back of your ATM card, see that 800 number? I will call you back using that number.”

Apparently, the scammers were able to ghost that number. They switched him around to various other people who were impersonating bank people and law enforcement. Convinced him to wire money to a “ultra safe government account so the hackers can’t get at your money.” They asked him not to go to his normal bank branch “because we suspect persons at your branch are in on the scheme, they might be the ones who have stolen your identity.”


The next day, he called his bank’s HQ… and found out that there was no one named David Ronson working anywhere at the bank.

Of course, real law enforcement and FBI are now in the case, but the likelihood he can claw back his money is remote. “It’s likely that account you sent money to has been liquidated and closed by now.”

As I said, my neighbor is a very successful person. Although losing $75,000 hurts, he’s not going to destitute over the loss.

I told him I would likely have fallen for the same ruse, using the ghosted 800 number would likely be pretty convincing. The lesson here is “call your bank using their published number, don’t trust incoming calls as legit.”

What a shame.

Moral of the story is you ALWAYS initiate the call.

Yikes. Doesn’t help him but my policy on matters such as this have always been to hang up and call back or go through a known good number or website. Plus the whole wiring to a “known good secure account” sounds ridiculously hokey.

I hate scammers. Once got a cold call from an agent claiming to be secret service. It sounded legit but see paragraph above. I told him I would attempt to contact him through his field office and hung up. It took a bit of time but I went through known good numbers and got back to the guy. It was completely legit. He said he completely understood my concerns especially since me and lots of people don’t know that SS handles lots of fraud investigations. Who knew?

This story is why banking is so scary to me. Credit cards have protections. Bank fraud it seems like you are screwed.

I have received multiple calls from scammers recently saying they were with Chase bank fraud department. If in doubt, hang up and call them directly.

These are things to learn by, thinking about how they scammed this guy, just go to the bank in person. So what if someone at the branch is involved? If they steal money from your account then they pay you back. If you agree to transfer yourself then you gave away the money and will likely not see it again.

I have an acquaintance whose wife used to work for a cell company, she even retired with them. Yet, a scammer claiming to work for that company scammed her. They got her to agree to some purchases and they got the goods, not sure if she is going to get her money back. She agreed to it after all.

This is a real concern of mine as I grow older. Right now it would be hard to scam me but as I get older and AI gets better, how will I prevent getting scammed? Maybe keep all my life savings in cash then I only have to worry about it getting physically stolen or burned up in a fire.

quote:

First off, the neighbor is no dummy. Highly educated, been an international exec, done extraordinarily well financially and personally.

Just goes to show that being highly educated and rich and powerful doesn’t necessarily translate into smart. Never engage, unless you initiate it, no matter how legit anything appears. Scammers are getting too sophisticated, so, in this day and age, that’s how it’s going to have to be.

Btw, the number “ghosting” thing is not something new.

I'm sorry but your neighbor is an idiot.
It's SUPER easy to spoof a number on caller ID.

All of this sounds like a scam beginning to end, and typical of offshore call centers. Anyone should know that any number can be spoofed on caller ID, including your own. Correct response is to hang up and call your bank's fraud department directly before you provide any information to anyone on a cold call.

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Convinced him to wire money to a “ultra safe government account so the hackers can’t get at your money.”

How could this make sense to a guy that is not a dummy? Really? Your bank wants you to wire 75K to the government? Say that out loud and see if it makes any sense at all.

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Originally posted by mttaylor1066:
The next day, he called his bank’s HQ

Huh? Hang up and immediately call your bank directly.

I've gotten spam calls from my own number.

I hope my general distrust of people when it comes to my money continues to prevent me from being scammed.Personally, I'd either call back or go to my local branch. If my local branch was involved, it would be the banks problem and I'd never wire money anywhere except to a different account at a different bank which I'd do without the help of the "fraud department". Sorry for your neighbor but this stuff is on the news all the time.

Sounds like “highly educated” and common sense aren’t synonymous in this gentleman. Anyone who isn’t aware that scammers can spoof any CID number must have never answered a phone in the last decade or two!

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Originally posted by Butch 2340:
How could this make sense to a guy that is not a dummy? Really? Your bank wants you to wire 75K to the government? Say that out loud and see if it makes any sense at all.

It was obviously legit. That’s why the neighbor didn’t need to say it out loud.

I can not wait for the day when one of our fentanyl boat sniffing Hellfire’s start flying into office buildings taking these scammers out. The governments of the most frequently offending countries don’t seem to put much effort into stopping these guys. Make your own conclusions why that is. Our government is too soft to make an example of these thieves. The pain they cause is right up there with rape and murder as far as I’m concerned. The only difference being that victims of theft can be made whole again if the scumbags are caught, the latter two offenses are lifetime sentences for the victims.
Again, Para would throw me out of here quick if I said how I really felt. I absolutely hate these scumbags.

quote:

Originally posted by Butch 2340:

quote:

Convinced him to wire money to a “ultra safe government account so the hackers can’t get at your money.”

How could this make sense to a guy that is not a dummy? Really? Your bank wants you to wire 75K to the government? Say that out loud and see if it makes any sense at all.

You are so right Butch.

There are so many flags in his story.
There are a few simple rules that will keep people from falling for these starting with "does this make sense?". Initiate the call, don't click on the link, its really a short list.
Your neighbor may be smart but he doesn’t seem very bright.

He's not that smart if he fell for that. The minute he was told not to call his bank should have set off all kinds of alarms. He got caught lacking as the kids say.

I was thinking of ending my original post with the line: “Of course, all of us are too smart to be fooled like that.”

Law enforcement will NEVER call you and ask you to do anything related to money. If you get a call like that it’s 100% a scam. I’ve worked two scams recently where intelligent people were scammed out of $110k. It starts by clicking on a pop up on your phone or computer. They obtain the victim’s email and phone number and it goes from there. If they tell you not to tell anyone or tell specific lies to your bank, 100% a scam. There are call centers in India and South West Asia that do this hundreds of times a day.

quote:

Originally posted by mttaylor1066:
I was thinking of ending my original post with the line: “Of course, all of us are too smart to be fooled like that.”

I like to think our members are more aware then most about how to spot scams mainly due the the attention the subject has gotten from the issues in the classifieds and the attention Para has brought to it.