So you wasted how much time on a fraud call? I'd hang up in 15 seconds.

My elderly widowed aunt got snarled up in one of these. She called to tell me the people were on their way to deliver her Mercedes! But she had to take them to her bank first and give them $4,000 cash for some kind of fee!!

We got her talked down and called the county sheriff just in case, but she continued to get phone calls from them forever, 10 or 12 calls per day. 🤬

Was it Ed McMahon?

Presuming that the ne'er-do-wells don't spend their time sticking to the same preposterous pitch, that most would dismiss as such in seconds, if it weren't sometimes successful, it leads one to wonder who could be so thick to miss the reality and get hooked.

Obviously, I wasn't convinced, but it made me angry to hear how good he was at sounding warm and caring and honest.

Good for you, for not being convinced. I do think that some of these scams are skillfully done and bring results, Glad you were not one of those taken in. As long as a tiny fraction can be persuaded, it is worth their while to try, and if one of them is making hundreds of calls a day, it gives them time to polish the 'warm and caring' bit.

It was clear they were targeting older people.

Unfortunately, because some older people have cognitive disorders they are a choice target. Families/friends can help sometimes, but obviously some people are scammed.

I just don't know how he can sleep at night.

I have heard that some who work at scamming have been trafficked and forced by various threats to make calls/messages to benefit their captors. They may be aware of what they are doing, and not be able to sleep at night.

Confirmation of why I don't answer calls from numbers I don't recognize. If I get a call from an unrecognized number, I let it go to voice mail. A legit caller will leave a message and then I can return the call. And if it is a scammer, I just delete their voice mail.

LOL, LoneJack. Not even close!

Elmer, "thick" is a little harsh, don't you think? Older people are often more trusting, perhaps because they grew up in a safer, friendlier time. My stepmother, despite having spent most of her life in NYC, retained a certain innocence in her old age. She wrote far too many checks to the Salvation Army, responding to every one of their appeals. And she thought the president of Reader's Digest wrote personal letters of thanks to her.

The other thing is that people tend to believe what they want to believe. An $8 million check is seductive stuff, especially to someone who might be living on Social Security. And those awful romance scams can sound so obvious to us, but they feed right into a deeply lonely person's need for loving attention.

Plausible. I suppose that's how they hook people. The older set are of the generation that recalls many game show contestants did not get their prizes until they paid the income tax on them. It's easy to see how a fee would not be out of the question. So how does it work? I can't imagine one of these people meeting anyone at a bank. I sure hope no one gives out an address--sort of sounded like they were casing the joint hoping to get in when no one was home. Will you be alone -was super creepy question. WHO would be?!! Wouldn't most call someone anyone out of sheer excitement wanting company at this moment?

Our local TV station has a segment every night on scamming with examples. I am incredulous at what people fall for. We are Luddites with a landline, and I never pick up after looking at the caller ID and I realize that has greatly diminished the calls. I used to get many, now some days none. If you answer, they know it's a legitimate number. But all they get is a message, what number they reached, and to leave a message, which of course they never do. I am suspicious of everybody. Maybe I read and listen to horror stories online. Zero people have my cell number. Only two people, my kids and no one else, including doctors , dentists, etc and I get no call on the iPhone.

Yes, arcy - in our aunt’s case, we were particularly frightened for her. SHE said that THEY said they were ”on their way” with the car. Now, we don’t know if they really were, because all we know is what Aunt told us. She is 89 years old and lives alone in small town USA. Of course we called the sheriff (whom we know personally as well as a couple of the deputies). They kept an eye on her place for several days.

”But they sounded so sincere,” she told us. *shudder*

" "thick" is a little harsh, don't you think? Older people are often more trusting, "

I hadn't thought about potential targets being people suffering from cognitive decline. You're right about that.

But I won't go along with your characterization of some older people.

Absent a decline in cognitive skills, someone who was alert and capable at age 50 doesn't suddenly become vulnerable at age 75. And with the same proviso, someone who is clueless at 75 was also likely so at 50.

The two con victims we've known were in the second category, mostly clueless throughout their lives. It is what it is.

Told my husband about THIS post. He'd gotton this call...saying he'd WON! His response was...ok...send over the check. Guy on the other end...weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell....it's not THAT simple. So DH said he wasn't interested and hung up. haha

It can be very challenging dealing with my profoundly deaf mom. As frustrating as it is not to be able to reach her by phone for welfare checks, maybe it's a good thing she won't answer!

An elderly man, who lives locally, fell for that scam. He confided to me about it. I asked him if he had entered the PCH sweepstakes...no, he hadn't but he could not be persuaded otherwise. This was the 2nd similar scam he had fallen for. I don't know the details of the first one, but he had sent about $4,000 to them. I don't know how much the PCH scam cost him.

Right now, a friend of mine who lives in another state, has fallen for 2 romance scams. One is a fairly well known singer...that I have never heard of, because I don't follow the "new" music..,but he is about 30 years old and promised he is coming to visit her.(She is 70. She believes him when he says "age is just a number".)

The other guy is 61, off shore worker in the Netherlands....has a teenage son in boarding school. ( This is a typical scenario presented by Nigerian romance scammers.). I tried to tell her...did not want to hear it. I said, "well, just don't send them any money"

because that is where this leads to.

I am amazed that people fall for these scams. My friend who is communicating with the two, is 70 yrs old, wheel chair bound, on oxygen and weighs 400 lb. These scammers steal photos of very handsome men, who probably in real life have all the woman they could possibly want, or are actually gay...and their photos are stolen and used to con old women.....it is beyond me. I will never understand it.

Alisande, that was a creepy experience. My mother lost her barriers against crap like this as she aged. The one brother who lives nearby took over her finances, including her checking account out of necessity, but not before she had given away thousands to various ”charities”.

I tend to be a bit brusk and short when contacted by people like this, whether by phone, text, or at my door. Especially when they ring my doorbell. We have a No Solicitation sign, subtle but obvious, which helps. I have to answer most of my calls because I get so many from different healthcare resources some of which are not on my call list.

I do not hold conservations with any of these people, have no compunction about hanging up on someone or not opening the door to any stranger.

Marilyn, it must be so frustrating to hear their stories! I remember a woman I saw interviewed on TV once. Even after she had to accept that her famous suitor was a complete phony, and even though her savings were wiped out, she said she had no regrets. It was obvious that part of her still believed he loved her.

I can't count the number of fake men who have tried to friend me on Facebook. Every woman on FB has probably experienced the same thing. The men are all around 60, all very handsome, and likely to be a high-ranking officer in the military, an airline captain, or a heart surgeon. Despite their stellar resumes, they're casting about for true love. They all think I'm wonderful, and it's interesting how they all tend to use the same words to tell me so. Maybe they're related. 🤪

I occasionally get those creepy Facebook messages from those handsome military men, airline pilots, or heart surgeons. There must be enough women who fall for those messages.

If you do a reverse image search of those men, you'll find the person the pic belongs to.

Sometimes I've replied with this and then they block me, lol.

Sephia and Nina, I like both your ideas! lol

Our county's district attorney issued a warning this morning about a phone scam in which someone posing as our sheriff demands money in lieu of arrest for missing jury duty.

alisande, I hope most people would start laughing before closing the door.

Elmer, it was a phone scam--thank heavens. It wouldn't be fun to see someone at your door. Although I didn't mention that the phone scammer knew my address. I didn't like hearing that, but I wasn't surprised. My address probably came with my name from whatever source he used.

i had a guy show up at my front door (which i rarely use) wanting to know if i'd be interested in buying some "overstock" schwan's stuff. i was talking to him through the screen...

steak, shrimp, boneless chicken, blah blah blah. i noticed the label on his work shirt was from a mechanic shop. i asked how it is he was selling schwan's food. he said he used to be a schwan's delivery man and they would contact him when they had a surplus in his area. mind you, both of my great danes were very suspicious and would not stop barking and trying to push out the door. i told him i wasn't interested and started to close the storm door but he was still talking, very insistently that it was a really good deal. i gave him 30 seconds to walk away or i'd let the dogs out. as he was driving away, i noticed his vehicle, a beat up old truck with a beat up old freezer in the bed. 🙄

Oh, sorry I missed that. Same comment then. I hope those getting such a call would start laughing as or just after ending the call.

I get them on FB all the time. Usually just block them, but sometimes I will say, "How's the weather in Nigeria?"

One replied back to me, "Where is Nigeria?"

I said, "Look out of a window."

When I first moved to New York, I lived with a girl who was very nice but not very bright. One day she came home clutching a thick bank deposit envelope. She told me about meeting a woman who was a widow with four children, who had found an envelope full of money and was very upset, not knowing what to do. Because my roommate "was so nice," the woman decided to split the money with her. But first, the woman went to a pay phone and called her "boss," who advised her that my roommate needed to put up some money in good faith. First they went to an ATM and my roommate took out all the money in her checking account, which was a few hundred dollars. But "that wasn't enough" so they went to Macy's where my roommate used her father's credit card to buy the woman some jewelry. Then the woman had to go see her boss, but couldn't bring my roommate with her because "there were clients in the office." So she went to the "office" and left my roommate waiting for her -- in the lobby of the Empire State Building! My roommate waited a few hours before coming home. When she opened the envelope, she found that it wasn't full of money, but stuffed with pieces of paper. Her reaction? "Oh, no! That poor woman! She's going to be so disappointed because really needed the money to take care of her children."

I haven't seen that roommate in over 40 years. I can only imagine what she's falling for over the internet.

Oh my. "Not very bright" sounds like an understatement.

It's a reminder that like so many things, the distribution of intelligence and common sense is a bell curve. There would be fewer insights and surprises in considering the conduct and accomplishments of those in the Top 20% without a Bottom 20% to compare them.

Had a guy call yesterday, my landline gets 99% scam calls...saying he was from the IRS. I said, "Ya know, the IRS doesn't call people?" He said, "yes, we wanted to know if you wanted a roof inspection." 😂

LOL . . . "Oh. Well, that's okay then."

My ususually quite smart and skeptical fridnd took $8k out of the bank and deposited it into a bill paying machine at a random convenience store because someone called from the ”sheriff’s office” that she skipped jury duty and had a warrant for her arrest.

She cares for her 17 year old son with developmental disabilities who is sometimes violent. She said on most days she would have said ccome arrest me. Jail is probably better than my home life! She has no idea why on this day she fell for a scam.

I had a friend -with whom I graduated college - who fell for a guy who ended up being a scammer. She never gave him money, but she was so embarrassed that she “got caught” in a romantic scam. When he asked her for a lot of money (they hadn’t met yet, only phone calls) her radar finally went up. She was afraid to tell me because she thought she should have been smart enough to sniff out a weasel, but I assured her these guys are better at what they do than we are at finding deceitful, horrible people.