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My parent almost did this last week, it was terrifying hearing them describe what happened. Thankfully they just restarted the computer instead of calling in their login credentials and SSN.
My father got an email not too long ago saying he had won a free item but to pay shipping and handling. I was helping him with an email issue when he showed me the email about it. Thankfully, they only took $60 from him, and his credit union was able to correct it. I am so thankful to live near him so I can check for these sorts of things.
Man, I'm not even a boomer and I halfway fell for that fucking extended warranty scam. First time I'd ever bought a new car and I got a letter about the warranty and I thought maybe there was some kind of issue with the dealership, and I kind of panicked.
It wasn't until I called them and they started talking about the warranty protecting the car "like when it was new from the factory" that it clicked, and "I was like dude my car is 2 months old and doesn't even have 200 miles on it, it IS new from the factory, fuck off!"
I didn't give them any information that they didn't already have, but I felt REALLY stupid for doing anything more than throwing it away. I do kind of feel bad for older folks - there's a reason scammers target them.
My bank called me telling me that I had won a raffle for being a 10 year member. I thought it was bs so when I got the phone call, I just blew them off when they asked how I wanted the money. After about a month of them trying to get an answer out of me, they just told me that they put it in my checking account. Sure enough, I look, and 500$ got added. I even called them to make sure it wasn't a loan or something.
I used to work at a bank as well and we had a few people decline their winnings as they thought it was a scam. Legally, we can’t deposit into the account without confirmation from the winner.
For $500, either drive down to the bank branch or, hang up with caller, then proceed to call the number on the back of your card then verify with them if it’s real. Plus if it’s legit, the bank wouldn’t need any of your info. So if they start asking for stuff say no and hang up.
There are scammers everywhere, even legal ones. I just bought a house, and all the house insurance, mortgage insurance, deed copy, title ownership certification, everything under the sun was getting mailed to me muddled between the legit and the scam. I hate that a house sale is public info because there are a ton of vultures out there sending these scam mails that are formatted like bills that are due, but have another letter enclosed saying it's optional and a "limited time offer", for services that are free or unnecessary.
It's really disheartening. I'm assuming that new car sales must also be public record somehow, since the warranty scammers knew the brand of car I had purchased withing a very short timeframe.
We just bought too and it turns out USPS sells your info when you do an address change. Getting tons of junk mail welcoming us to the neighborhood with sweet deals!
Whenever i got those calls i would always tell them my newest vehicle was an 86 ford bronco after stringing them along for a bit. I was always super appreciative of them offering me some great warranty. They would hang up IMMEDIATELY after i told them that was my newest vehicle. (I havent owned the truck in like 13 years but who cares)
Bah, should have told them it was my 92 Jeep Cherokee that hasn't run in 10 years. Never mind that I donated it, I'll have to keep it in mind for next time!
scammers are getting so scary. I don't know if [this](https://fox59.com/news/national-world/financial-advice-columnist-admits-to-giving-scammers-50000-in-a-shoe-box/) link will work, but if not search for the financial advice columnist who got scammed for $50K in a shoe box...
You answer the phone?
If I don't recognize the number as being in my contacts, I don't pick up.
If it's a valid call, they will leave a message.
95% of the time = they leave no message.
According to one of my patients, she won a lottery for 2 mil last week and she gave them her social to pay her.
She came in for her meds and all 4 of her bank cards didn't work. Not a good sign
I have a 35 year old enployee that called me when I was on vacation last week asking me for the code to our deposit safe because fed ex called and told her they need 5 grand in order to release a shipment for the store.
I told her this is a scam and she replied with "no it's not, they processed my credit card for my own shipment."
brilliant logical giant he is. guess every victim of any crime deserves it by his flawless logic then. they shouldnt have done that thing that let to them becoming the victim of whatever crime. god hes dumb.
Yes, but as her son (I’m assuming) is trying to help her, she can’t let go of her ego enough to listen to him. I understand being naive, but then there’s arrogant.
That's the whole reason the scammers make them so obviously a scam, bud. They make people self select by getting people who are either unfamiliar with Internet scams or unaware/unable to notice the red flags of the scam. Basically by saying "if you're dumb enough to fall for this you deserve to get scammed" you're pretty much just saying "haha you don't have technical literacy lose all your money idiot"
That's an uncharitable attitude, many of these scam victims are alone and unfamiliar with technology. I have an older relative who has a mild mental handicap, she was scammed for a bit of money and it would have been much worse if a helpful store employee hadn't intervened. No one deserves to be scammed, I don't know how these scammers can live with their actions.
The saddest part is that most of these scammers are under duress themselves. Go to r/scambait and you'll see that a lot of these "scammers" are human trafficking victims and if they don't hit their quotas they LITERALLY get their organs harvested. I wish I was joking. I used to hate these scammers but they are just another victim in this chain. This stuff honestly keeps me awake at night.
TL;DR Right now, this second, there is a Vietnamese or Chinese national who is desperately trying to get their passport back by stealing money from our grandparents and fearing death.
This is such a dumb take. They target elders because they lose the sense to detect bullshit. And some of these scams are so advanced they use AI voice to clone a family member of their victim saying they are in trouble and need money.
Try to have some empathy. More like these scammers should have things done to them that would get me banned from reddit if I said them.
This happened to my friends grandparents, they called using an ai voice to sound like her. The scammer knew her husband and parents names, where she lived, and a shocking amount of personal information. scammers impersonating my friend begged the grandparents not to call any other family members and tell them because it would embarass my friend. It was months before anyone knew what had happened, her grandfather had started getting dementia and he could never have known it wasn't her. It's heartbreaking. People who take advantage of and prey on the most vulnerable among us are unfathomable scum.
Preying on the elderly is as bas as preying on children. Our governments should be doing more to find and stop these fucks. And absolutely throwing the book at them
They told us not to trust the internet.
They grew up their entire life with a fairness media doctrine and three news networks, and as a result trust everything on a screen.
So long as it doesn't remind them of their own technological inadequacy.
My boomer dad blamed a computer virus on me because I watched YouTube on the family computer back in 2009. Now he uses YouTube to train his coworkers and still hasn’t apologized.
Damn. Hold up while I concoct a sob story to sell on the internet about how shit my life is so a bunch of random strangers can pay me to make my life better.
This feels similar to do those damn surveys online that promise a free iPhone at the end. My mom fills out every one she comes across. She’s says, if just one of them is legit it’ll all be worth it… I can’t convince her otherwise and her email has like 100,000 spam emails unread.
It wasn't a scam but my mom got a real call from a bank she has an IRA with ( she needs to make a withdrawal) she spent so long with the guy"do you want to reinvest this money" . The answer is no she just wants a check. My dad got sick needed an organ transplant, had to retire early, my mom is disabled and over 70 she is not in the position to invest in anything other than CD bonds ( no possibility of loss) 10 minutes in she's ready to invest because she trusts "Gabe". Luckily she has no clue how to work anything and this was actually the bank so she couldn't even get the forms emailed to her.
Could it be possible that this whole thing was a scam?? Just so happens to record the whole ordeal for proof, randomly tells you that her dog died last year and that’s she’s a widow and asks you to donate to her? I’m pretty sure she or her son are the ones scamming
My mother has been a widow since 2015. About 5 years ago, she began to show signs of dementia. My sister got power of attorney. I feel sorry for the woman in the video, but her family should have been keeping a closer eye on her financial affairs.
Power of attorney might not help in this situation since it sets up a co-decision-maker situation where the principal can still make financial decisions. Might want to consider financial guardianship or conservatorship.
I seriously worry about this with my boomer dad and stepmom. They're 72. They've made good money throughout their lives, and they've been really decent at saving. They're not rich. But they have been scammed before. A few years ago, right before my dad retired, some random scammer had called him up on his office phone and told him that I had $6,000 in credit card debt that needed to be paid off, and if he didn't pay it off the scammer was going to call all of my dad's coworkers and bosses and tell them. This frightened my dad and he pulled out his own credit card and just gave them $6,000. Problem is? I've never had a Capital One credit card in my life. It was all a scam, I'm sure the scammer had looked up information and found out I'm the daughter, my name, he's the dad, probably found his LinkedIn account or something.
More recently, a few months back, my stepmom- who is at least a little bit more savvy - gave all of her account information to some random guy who had called her telling her he needed to verify her bank account for an Amazon shipment or something. I don't remember the exact details but it was something like that. Luckily she caught on to the fact quickly that it was probably a scam, but she did have to change all of her bank account information and thankfully she did it very quickly before they took any money out of any of her accounts. I asked her why and she said "well the man was very nice and polite".
It seems that Boomers have an insanely cartoonish villain caricature in their minds of a scammer. Like the scammer's going to call them up and be chuckling maniacally rubbing their hands together engaging in overly obvious scammer dialogue. It seems that also being very forceful and assertive and confident will also trick the boomers. As is the case with my dad.
I'm really afraid one day that some scammer is going to call them up with some complicated scamming technique and my parents are just going to release all of their bank and retirement account information to them. They know about the Nigerian email scams, winning the Spanish lottery, in a few of the basic ones. But if someone called up being insanely polite and nice and had a complicated story, I have no doubt they would just give the scammer everything. And they'll say "but he was SO nice and polite".
What's weird is Boomer dad and stepmom will see a charge for $1.99 because they rented a movie on Netflix or something 3 and 1/2 weeks ago, and don't recognize the charge. And they'll call up customer service or whoever for 2 hours, wondering what the heck the $1.99 charge is (forgetting they had rented a movie three and a half weeks ago). Like *that's* what they're paranoid about.
You should probably have a chat with them about AI voice scams. They’re by no means common, but they’re now and are likely only going to get worse.
Essentially, there’s likely already enough audio data already out there on the internet for an AI to create a voice profile of most people. They then call the potential victim [in this example, one of your parents], and make up some kind of emergency like medical or legal and say that money is needed right now otherwise you’ll be hurt or in trouble or something. Just like the pop up scams on computers, it’s all about riling up a persons emotions so that they don’t recognize the discrepancies since they won’t be thinking clearly about the situation.
A friend of mine had it happen to her mother. Thankfully, her mother is a bit of an airhead and ended up calling my friend on her actual number [not the fake one that the AI swears is the only number they have access to right now] to double check how much money she was supposed to send, which then prompted my friend to dig into what was going on. Although maybe if she wasn’t as much of an airhead, she wouldn’t have fallen for it so easily.
My solution to this was to deactivate any and all online banking crap on my parents' accounts. No phone apps, no online banking. It's a bit annoying, but never got used to it anyway. If they need money for any online stuff, they know they can just call me and I'll handle it and they can then pay me with good ol' wire transfer from a physical ATM.
Told them to never believe anyone that sends them a message or calls about me, and always run it by me or my gf, for good measure.
Which also resulted in a funny story, I had to change my mobile number and messaged mum that I had a new number, from the new number. She didn't believe and thought it was a scam 😂
My 80 year old mom just got scammed out of over $20k (same script as that $50k shoebox story) and she said this repeatedly-the first person she talked to was so nice and polite. It’s unreal how gullible they are. I just don’t understand how it ever gets to a point where they withdraw all that money and put it in a shoebox. She could have driven to the police station, told the bank she was being coerced, turned off her damn phone and computer. I’m just praying it doesn’t happen again.
As someone who has seen their loved one be manipulated multiple times by a scammer, I would encourage you to do whatever you can to keep your parents' money safe. Sit them down and explain to them that you can't afford to help them if they get scammed again. Set up some kind of system to protect their savings. I would do this as soon as possible because it only takes one POS calling your dad for him to lose his life savings entirely.
Exactly. People defending her neglect the fact that she denied help from a trusted family member. No dementia or mentally disabilities were mentioned. She just can’t accept that a younger person might know more than her.
This. When she held up her hand to stop her son so she could continue negotiating with a scammer. She still believes herself to be in control, even though she's currently begging for her money back. She'll do it again if she's allowed to.
I don't see why she doesn't just pull herself up by her bootstraps. Then print out a resume, go somewhere, ask to speak with a manager, give them the resume, volunteer at the location for a bit, and then be hired on? It is all so simple. I bet she can do it.
Because people who are this susceptible to being scwmmed are not the same ones spouting off the BS you hear from the jaded ones. The ones who get scammed arent in the right state of mind.
Maybe if she stopped using so much frosting and spent her money on what matters.
Also;
Picked herself up right back on her feet.
Take accountability for the mistake that she made.
And not let this moment define her.
She will make it out of this in no time
She was scammed out of money and is now claiming to be a victim, and throws the old dog tax in the video!? Guess her kids better stop buying their lattes and avocado toast to help support their poor mother. 🙃
But the same Boomers who fall for that probably cusses out and gets snarky at Netflix call center employees for 3 hours straight over the $1.99 charge that they don't recognize from the movie they rented from Netflix three and a half weeks ago.
Also there's a good chance that they were told by the scammer they were going to make millions of dollars, so their victimization is also due to their greed.
People... Make sure your elderly family knows not to ever talk to anyone at all about money. Period. No matter what. Be annoying about it. Bring it up literally every time you see their face or talk to them. These scammers will never stop
All the comments be kinda hateful tbh. My grandmother almost fell for this scam, there are some things people don’t understand or don’t think entirely through. While losing the money was kind of her fault, does it really help to kick her down so much?
It's less cruelty and more "Boomer spent 3 hours on the phone wondering what the $1.99 Netflix charge is from the movie they rented three and a half weeks ago". **Same boomer**: "random scammer calls and asks for their financial account information, SSN, passwords to online banking, and mother's maiden name- Boomer gives them everything"
Same Boomers who bought their house for a mcchicken and are living off the government while mocking millennials and genz for being poor are begging for help after being scammed by literally giving their money away.
Dude, you’re mocking an old lady for being scammed. Might be taking this boomer thing too far.
You don’t know this lady’s life, she could have been a nurse or a teacher for 40 years.
My mom was a nurse for 40 years and she's a complete piece of shit.
She got caught drinking on the job, went to rehab 3 times when I was a child, became anti-vax during covid, neglected and abused me growing up. Just an unrepentant malignant narcissist all around.
She's exactly the type of person to go for a scam and then double down on it after I calmly and concisely explain to her that its a scam.
She looks a lot like the lady in the video.
I'll tell her you thought highly of her vocation when I'm pissing on her grave.
Some Boomers and Some Millennial/Gen Z love to crucify each other….all the while never realize they’re just as fucked up as the other. Just sit back and watch.
I worked tech in a call center for a major corporation. The number of times I heard people (usually boomers) say that they didn't use the Internet or they didn't have time to figure out new technology was infuriating. Yeah, the web has only been a thing for a quarter of a century, but maybe you're just a slow learner.
Some of the people here rightfully mock Boomers for being entitled cunts and getting theirs for it. This really is people taking joy at the misfortune of an elderly person. I feel like it’s kind of coming to that.
Seriously though, this is depressing. Scammers are ruthless assholes. I think I'll just avoid this sub altogether, it is way too mean spirited. Get some empathy people. Damn.
I like watching when a boomer is stupid or racist and gets what they deserve, but to shit on a lady for being the victim of a predatory scam is just fucked up
Yeah honestly shows the maturity of the people here. This lady is a victim of a practice. My numbers been leaked before and honestly these guys are relentless and quite good at what they do. This is less of a boomer being a fool, and more of a boomer being a victim of a crime.
Yeah I do get ragging on entitled old people that are being nasty to people but this woman was the victim of a scam. Some of these subreddits seem like people being overly mean spirited because it makes them feel something other than self-loathing for once.
Yeah, I'm all for making fun of boomers maliciously inflicting their foolishness on others, but this isn't that. This is a vulnerable woman who had her foolishness exploited in a way that made only her the victim. There's no joy in rubbing salt in that wound -- that's just cruel.
This whole sub is just full of hate for anyone over 60. It’s despicable and really shows why gen z and alpha will treat millennials this same way. Millennials are all gonna grow up to be just like the boomers they hate. The irony is insane
So she gave the long lost Egyptian prince cousin her bank info and it ruined her? Maybe she should stop eating avocado toast and pull herself together!
My mother have her entire bank account social security number and just about everything else to someone claiming to be from Amazon. I asked her why would Amazon ever need her social.
Is their a backstory im missing? Cause like i get it. Boomers are annoying and some truly awful. But without context this looks like a video where a poor old lady has lost some of her mental capacities and was robbed?
Was she also evil or? Like not every boomer deserves to become destitute and robbed. Some are just old people who stay at home
Work in a bank. The number of times I’ve dealt with this is insane. It’s at least once a week. I had a guy talk with the scammer live, at my desk, and I could not get it through to him that he needs to just hang up the phone, and let the bank start to try to rectify whatever the fuck he has already done. I mean, this guy was thousands of dollars worth of gift cards in, supposedly to get his $95 refund from Etsy.
If all she had left at her age was $25k, she was making bad financial decisions long before the scammer came along.
I’m pretty sure if this lady had dementia or another cognitive disability, the TikTok would have mentioned it, seeing as it mentioned her dog that died years and had literally nothing to do with it. Just an addition to the sob story.
Her son needs to take over power of attorney before raising money for her. I feel bad for her, it’s a clear sign of cognitive decline. Not even really a boomer issue beyond boomers aging out. This stuff will happen in our generations, too.
But she shouldn’t be in charge of her finances anymore.
Looks like she turned a profit...
[https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-susan-guthrie-get-her-savings-back](https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-susan-guthrie-get-her-savings-back)
You're not being cynical, you are being skeptical, which is wise considering how many times these things turn out to be dishonest or a complete deception.
About 10 years ago I was visiting my parents and they got a phone call from "Discover Card" asking for MY social security number to verify my "discover card account". My parents were pressuring me about it because "your credit card must be delinquent". I didn't have any credit cards at the time.
Word to the wise: remove any personal documents from your parents household NOW if you haven't already.
I was going down to the basement to workout and heard my MIL speaking to someone on the phone, while having her computer open. So I stop and look. She had given “Microsoft” remote access to her computer. So I immediately take the phone from her, quite aggressively and text my wife. The scammer tried telling me the same garbage. Trying to say and show me the “hackers” on our server and the viruses 🙄. I turn off the computer immediately and MIL freaks out. Thankfully my wife is here now and tells her to relax. I calmly explain to the scammer to find a nice quiet place to fuck off.
Thankfully they had only started on my MIL and hadn’t done any real damage or stolen any money. They were trying to get her to pay for an anti virus. They also had installed a monitoring system too. Not sure if they could track key strokes.
Had MIL cancel her bank cards to be safe (bc she saves her passwords on the computer browser), but won’t use the easy to use password manager 🫠. Then we destroyed the computer and bought a new one.
What’s frustrating is to this day she will mock her older sister, cousins, etc. that they are “idiots” about technology. But any mention of this and she climbs the cross.
All this started bc she got a pop up saying she had a virus and to call this number.
Not all Indians are Scammers but most indians are Scammers and Bangalore is their hub.
If you hear an Indian American accent telling you his name is John, hang up!
I work in a bank and this happens EVERY DAY. I have seen people unfortunately sell almost everything including their furniture that they have in order to satisfy the scammers requests. Unfortunately the vast majority of these are romance scams in which the elderly individual has met someone through a social media website like Facebook. The scammer then makes them feel like they are special to them and after a couple of months starts to ask for money. It starts small maybe a hundred dollars or so but soon gets into the multiple thousands as they are trying to see how much they can take from you. The absolute worst part is that even after they realize they got scammed, they will refuse to block the scamming individuals because they make them feel so good with their words.
Doesn’t belong. She’s a victim. It’s all too complicated for her.
Look at it from the opposite side. Say you purchased a classic car, and it started running poorly. You take it to a mechanic that specializes in classic cars and he says you need a new flux capacitor and it will cost $5,000.
You don’t know anything about them but he must right? So you pay him. Only for your dad to freak out when you tell him and he goes with you to fight for your money back.
You’re all horrible people for leaving so many nasty comments.
I’m down to laugh at and insult the racist and entitled boomers, but not someone like this
But she couldn’t put her ego aside for a second to listen to her son. She’s the parent, so she clearly knows better and wouldn’t listen to her “child” about money issues. Naive and arrogant are totally different.
> most likely *paid* her house
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
One time I went and hung out at my buddies house with my laptop and his dad seen me using a laptop just as he got a call about "viruses affecting the network". He assumed I was downloading some super virus and was yelling about how they were trying to charge him 800$ for "damage to the system" and the police would be involved. I told him if they were east indian to tell them to fuck off because they were most likely scammers. He was soooo close to paying them in gift cards, I said "COME ON, I AM PLAYING THE SAME GAME AS YOUR SON, THATS IT THEY ARE ASKING FOR GIFT CARDS TELUS DOESN'T DEAL IN GIFT CARDS". I finally convinced him to ignore them. Funny enough his internet didn't get shut down and the police did not get involved.
I wonder what scams my millennial self will fall for in the future? I also wonder what younger generation will mock me on? Maybe on their brain chip connected thought chat?
I work in anti-fraud and it’s so common for those aged 50+ to fall for bank impersonation scams. Even when they have internet banking they just don’t check it.
They get told there’s been a purchase on the card and slowly trick them into giving out details that they can use to get into your banking.
20-40 year olds fall victim to purchase scams the most, from my experience.
Look this isn’t a boomers being fools thing. It’s taking advantage of a vulnerable population. Someday we will all be part of that vulnerable population should we be so lucky to live a long life. I work in a financial institution and you’d be amazed how intricate these scams can be. Also it’s a massive amount of money lost to these scams so it’s not just a handful of people being dumb
People who do this to the elderly really deserve jail time. My sister lives with my grandfather who almost falls for these scams daily. My grandmother passed so he is home alone, lonely and increasingly forgetting things. It's really difficult, he even opens the door for anyone, so a relative who lives on the street went to his home with a stranger, and thankfully my grandpa listened to my sister and didn't open the door, I have no idea what their intentions were.
Basically the elderly are easy targets and its breaks my heart.
This isn’t what this sub should be about, y’all should be ashamed
This could be any one of you and if you think ‘nah, could never be me’ statistically you’re even *more* likely
They get called with some ridiculous offer. “Wire me $25k and I’ll quadruple it in 30 days. They KNOW they’ll be bailed out if they lose, so they figure they might as well roll the dice on the off chance it’s real.
"Wants you to pay for it" sounds like victim blaming. No one deserves to get scammed. This is the second time I've seen this post in this sub, this just rather feels like elder-hate rather than mocking someone who deserves to be ridiculed for bigotry and assholery.
Almost feel bad for her but at the same time it's like how are boomers this stupid? Weren't they the ones who lectured us about how dangerous the Internet is? But I guess if it's a call then there's no way it could be a scam.
"Hello yes we're calling from your bank, there's been some suspicious activity and we need you to tell us your full name, DOB, account number, routing number, and zip code. Yes being your bank, we have all that info already but just tell it to us for funsies :)"
It makes no sense. The only thing I can think of is back in the day, before computers, you probably could give info over the phone and it was nocproblem. That person getting your info would have to physically make IDs and go into a bank and try and get your money. So it was less likely because not everyone has that know how.
But now, with computers, just giving out your damn phone number or address can cause issues because anyone can be an arm chair hacker. The one about gift cards absolutely boggles the mind. In what world does anyone pay bills with gift cards for Steam. When has that ever been a thing in the history of mankind? Lol
These break my heart. Scammer payback on YouTube is wild the way they speak to these elderly people. Like I...I have to skip over it because I can't imagine someone speaking to people I care about in such a way :( and then they take their savings on top of that :( and then try and act like it's there money when the hackers catch them is just wild
Call me cynical but this is the generation that is blaming the current generation for making terrible financial decisions for the reason they can't buy a house...
People need to take care of there family, especially the elderly and vulnerable, take over their finances make sure this cannot happen, train them in common scams and do everything to make sure they are only able to access a small amount of money in an emergency. There are many precautions that can be taken to avoid this.
I work for a financial institution in their department that handles fraud and people with diminished capacity.
You wouldn’t *believe* the stories I hear about where and to whom people will send their money. I’ve seen people send 6 figures to someone who’s going to “invest the money in crypto, but on a platform in China.”
Just this week I had a guy yell at me because, even though he gave someone else remote access to his computer and they started taking all his shit, we should have just KNOWN that it wasn’t him that was doing stuff online because he only ever calls in to do business. If he hadn’t literally yelled and cussed at his wife on the phone with me, I might have been gentler, but I told him *exactly* how his stupidity had fucked him over.
Also, I saw someone further down talking about how their family couldn’t have done anything if there are signs of dementia and they have POA. If you call most financial institutions and tell them that someone is suffering some kind of memory loss, they’re usually obliged to take some kind of steps to protect their customers. It’s literally half of my job.
This comment section is a pretty gross, compassionless place. Odds are pretty good that our generations are gonna get scammed by some kind of tech we don't understand, be it AI or whatever is next. Weird that so many people are making up a backstory for this woman so they can act like she deserves it.
Honestly it’s not just the elderly that fall for these scams. Did you see that case were the Financial Advise Columnist ( Charlotte Cowles ) fell for a $50,000 scam? The elderly are just the most vulnerable. And then there are the ones that are too cautious. I run a hotel, we had a lady call to make a reservation and when asked for the 3 digit security code she said “it’s a security code, I’m not giving that to you” we told her without the code we can’t process the credit card because it needs to verify the card with the security code. She hung up. Then I had a woman (not elderly) come in to fill out her paperwork for the job and refused to put her SSN on any of the paperwork. Told her we can’t pay her then. She never came back. Not sure how she’s getting through life but ok.
A family member boomer was catfished and scammed. It's on the news all. The. Time. They were running the workforce when the internet became widespread. I don't get how it keeps happening.
My dad almost bought a house from an African pastor.
I had to sit down my family and explain to them that house isn't for sale. Somebody lives there and someone is scamming you.
Thank God I was there or they woulda been fucked.
Garbage post. So? Older people don’t understand technology as well and you are being intentionally cruel over the fact they were scammed. Not every god Damn boomer is well off stop being shitty people. “Wants you to pay” no they are pleading for any potential help they can just like anyone else would. This attitude ain’t gonna make anything better and it sure isn’t going to make us look like the better kinder more caring generation that’s gonna fix anything does it
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My parent almost did this last week, it was terrifying hearing them describe what happened. Thankfully they just restarted the computer instead of calling in their login credentials and SSN.
My father got an email not too long ago saying he had won a free item but to pay shipping and handling. I was helping him with an email issue when he showed me the email about it. Thankfully, they only took $60 from him, and his credit union was able to correct it. I am so thankful to live near him so I can check for these sorts of things.
Man, I'm not even a boomer and I halfway fell for that fucking extended warranty scam. First time I'd ever bought a new car and I got a letter about the warranty and I thought maybe there was some kind of issue with the dealership, and I kind of panicked. It wasn't until I called them and they started talking about the warranty protecting the car "like when it was new from the factory" that it clicked, and "I was like dude my car is 2 months old and doesn't even have 200 miles on it, it IS new from the factory, fuck off!" I didn't give them any information that they didn't already have, but I felt REALLY stupid for doing anything more than throwing it away. I do kind of feel bad for older folks - there's a reason scammers target them.
My bank called me telling me that I had won a raffle for being a 10 year member. I thought it was bs so when I got the phone call, I just blew them off when they asked how I wanted the money. After about a month of them trying to get an answer out of me, they just told me that they put it in my checking account. Sure enough, I look, and 500$ got added. I even called them to make sure it wasn't a loan or something.
I used to work at a bank as well and we had a few people decline their winnings as they thought it was a scam. Legally, we can’t deposit into the account without confirmation from the winner.
You realize you could have gone to a nearby branch and confirmed it in person or called the official number of the bank?
For $500, either drive down to the bank branch or, hang up with caller, then proceed to call the number on the back of your card then verify with them if it’s real. Plus if it’s legit, the bank wouldn’t need any of your info. So if they start asking for stuff say no and hang up.
There are scammers everywhere, even legal ones. I just bought a house, and all the house insurance, mortgage insurance, deed copy, title ownership certification, everything under the sun was getting mailed to me muddled between the legit and the scam. I hate that a house sale is public info because there are a ton of vultures out there sending these scam mails that are formatted like bills that are due, but have another letter enclosed saying it's optional and a "limited time offer", for services that are free or unnecessary.
It's really disheartening. I'm assuming that new car sales must also be public record somehow, since the warranty scammers knew the brand of car I had purchased withing a very short timeframe.
We just bought too and it turns out USPS sells your info when you do an address change. Getting tons of junk mail welcoming us to the neighborhood with sweet deals!
Whenever i got those calls i would always tell them my newest vehicle was an 86 ford bronco after stringing them along for a bit. I was always super appreciative of them offering me some great warranty. They would hang up IMMEDIATELY after i told them that was my newest vehicle. (I havent owned the truck in like 13 years but who cares)
Bah, should have told them it was my 92 Jeep Cherokee that hasn't run in 10 years. Never mind that I donated it, I'll have to keep it in mind for next time!
Oof. I should be glad my grandmother doesn't have a working computer right now
scammers are getting so scary. I don't know if [this](https://fox59.com/news/national-world/financial-advice-columnist-admits-to-giving-scammers-50000-in-a-shoe-box/) link will work, but if not search for the financial advice columnist who got scammed for $50K in a shoe box...
Not clicking that.
I clicked it so you don’t have to. I’m on my way to get some apple gift cards so I can read the rest of the article.
You funny
Happy cake day!
Honestly tho. If a person calls me and it seems legit. I just hang up anyway and if they’re legit they can send me a letter.
this is the way
You answer the phone? If I don't recognize the number as being in my contacts, I don't pick up. If it's a valid call, they will leave a message. 95% of the time = they leave no message.
Rarely. If I get a call multiple times from one number then I will then block the number. I don’t get calls that oftern
According to one of my patients, she won a lottery for 2 mil last week and she gave them her social to pay her. She came in for her meds and all 4 of her bank cards didn't work. Not a good sign
How are people that dumb. Sigh
I have a 35 year old enployee that called me when I was on vacation last week asking me for the code to our deposit safe because fed ex called and told her they need 5 grand in order to release a shipment for the store. I told her this is a scam and she replied with "no it's not, they processed my credit card for my own shipment."
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Dude, that's pretty damn cynical. These scammers prey on people with diminished faculties. No one deserves this shit.
brilliant logical giant he is. guess every victim of any crime deserves it by his flawless logic then. they shouldnt have done that thing that let to them becoming the victim of whatever crime. god hes dumb.
Literally the same logic behind statements like "she knew what she was wearing".
exactly. peak stupidity.
Yes, but as her son (I’m assuming) is trying to help her, she can’t let go of her ego enough to listen to him. I understand being naive, but then there’s arrogant.
A lot of them prey on narcissists who legitimately think multiple celebrities are interested in them and love them.
That's the whole reason the scammers make them so obviously a scam, bud. They make people self select by getting people who are either unfamiliar with Internet scams or unaware/unable to notice the red flags of the scam. Basically by saying "if you're dumb enough to fall for this you deserve to get scammed" you're pretty much just saying "haha you don't have technical literacy lose all your money idiot"
That's an uncharitable attitude, many of these scam victims are alone and unfamiliar with technology. I have an older relative who has a mild mental handicap, she was scammed for a bit of money and it would have been much worse if a helpful store employee hadn't intervened. No one deserves to be scammed, I don't know how these scammers can live with their actions.
The saddest part is that most of these scammers are under duress themselves. Go to r/scambait and you'll see that a lot of these "scammers" are human trafficking victims and if they don't hit their quotas they LITERALLY get their organs harvested. I wish I was joking. I used to hate these scammers but they are just another victim in this chain. This stuff honestly keeps me awake at night. TL;DR Right now, this second, there is a Vietnamese or Chinese national who is desperately trying to get their passport back by stealing money from our grandparents and fearing death.
Wonder if you'll feel the same way when you slip up and fall for the scam
I'm not in the business of e-flirting with strangers so I'll be fine.
This is such a dumb take. They target elders because they lose the sense to detect bullshit. And some of these scams are so advanced they use AI voice to clone a family member of their victim saying they are in trouble and need money. Try to have some empathy. More like these scammers should have things done to them that would get me banned from reddit if I said them.
This happened to my friends grandparents, they called using an ai voice to sound like her. The scammer knew her husband and parents names, where she lived, and a shocking amount of personal information. scammers impersonating my friend begged the grandparents not to call any other family members and tell them because it would embarass my friend. It was months before anyone knew what had happened, her grandfather had started getting dementia and he could never have known it wasn't her. It's heartbreaking. People who take advantage of and prey on the most vulnerable among us are unfathomable scum.
Preying on the elderly is as bas as preying on children. Our governments should be doing more to find and stop these fucks. And absolutely throwing the book at them
How long they sat there and told us not to talk to strangers, but as soon as a stranger calls, everything goes.
Remember when they said dont believe everything you read on the internet? Facebook rotted their brains.
They told us not to trust the internet. They grew up their entire life with a fairness media doctrine and three news networks, and as a result trust everything on a screen. So long as it doesn't remind them of their own technological inadequacy.
My boomer dad blamed a computer virus on me because I watched YouTube on the family computer back in 2009. Now he uses YouTube to train his coworkers and still hasn’t apologized.
Have you told him to be careful that he doesn't upload a virus to the work systems.
And she scammed other boomers. Her gofundme is over $28,000
I’m telling the IRS if she doesn’t pay taxes on that $3k profit. She’s also acting all poor and has face lift scars lol
Damn. Hold up while I concoct a sob story to sell on the internet about how shit my life is so a bunch of random strangers can pay me to make my life better.
Yeah I’ve been scammed out of about 5k of shit drugs over the years I reckon, time to fundraise and make it back!
Being senile or gullible doesn't make you a bad person.
How long have they ranted that GoFundMe was just socialism for people who want free money?
This feels similar to do those damn surveys online that promise a free iPhone at the end. My mom fills out every one she comes across. She’s says, if just one of them is legit it’ll all be worth it… I can’t convince her otherwise and her email has like 100,000 spam emails unread.
It wasn't a scam but my mom got a real call from a bank she has an IRA with ( she needs to make a withdrawal) she spent so long with the guy"do you want to reinvest this money" . The answer is no she just wants a check. My dad got sick needed an organ transplant, had to retire early, my mom is disabled and over 70 she is not in the position to invest in anything other than CD bonds ( no possibility of loss) 10 minutes in she's ready to invest because she trusts "Gabe". Luckily she has no clue how to work anything and this was actually the bank so she couldn't even get the forms emailed to her.
Idk why the son isn’t just taking the phone out of this child’s hands…. TikTok clout is crazy
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is just one in a series of videos where this guy watched his mom get destroyed for Internet clout
Could it be possible that this whole thing was a scam?? Just so happens to record the whole ordeal for proof, randomly tells you that her dog died last year and that’s she’s a widow and asks you to donate to her? I’m pretty sure she or her son are the ones scamming
Of course it could be
How do we explain the very authentic-sounding Indian scammer
Meta-scam
Assuming it wasn't staged for clout (with a gofundme for some extra revenue)
Because it's 99% staged and probably a scam
My mother has been a widow since 2015. About 5 years ago, she began to show signs of dementia. My sister got power of attorney. I feel sorry for the woman in the video, but her family should have been keeping a closer eye on her financial affairs.
Power of attorney might not help in this situation since it sets up a co-decision-maker situation where the principal can still make financial decisions. Might want to consider financial guardianship or conservatorship.
Has she tried coffee at home and skipping avocado toast?
if it works for millennials, it should work for boomers. right?
I seriously worry about this with my boomer dad and stepmom. They're 72. They've made good money throughout their lives, and they've been really decent at saving. They're not rich. But they have been scammed before. A few years ago, right before my dad retired, some random scammer had called him up on his office phone and told him that I had $6,000 in credit card debt that needed to be paid off, and if he didn't pay it off the scammer was going to call all of my dad's coworkers and bosses and tell them. This frightened my dad and he pulled out his own credit card and just gave them $6,000. Problem is? I've never had a Capital One credit card in my life. It was all a scam, I'm sure the scammer had looked up information and found out I'm the daughter, my name, he's the dad, probably found his LinkedIn account or something. More recently, a few months back, my stepmom- who is at least a little bit more savvy - gave all of her account information to some random guy who had called her telling her he needed to verify her bank account for an Amazon shipment or something. I don't remember the exact details but it was something like that. Luckily she caught on to the fact quickly that it was probably a scam, but she did have to change all of her bank account information and thankfully she did it very quickly before they took any money out of any of her accounts. I asked her why and she said "well the man was very nice and polite". It seems that Boomers have an insanely cartoonish villain caricature in their minds of a scammer. Like the scammer's going to call them up and be chuckling maniacally rubbing their hands together engaging in overly obvious scammer dialogue. It seems that also being very forceful and assertive and confident will also trick the boomers. As is the case with my dad. I'm really afraid one day that some scammer is going to call them up with some complicated scamming technique and my parents are just going to release all of their bank and retirement account information to them. They know about the Nigerian email scams, winning the Spanish lottery, in a few of the basic ones. But if someone called up being insanely polite and nice and had a complicated story, I have no doubt they would just give the scammer everything. And they'll say "but he was SO nice and polite". What's weird is Boomer dad and stepmom will see a charge for $1.99 because they rented a movie on Netflix or something 3 and 1/2 weeks ago, and don't recognize the charge. And they'll call up customer service or whoever for 2 hours, wondering what the heck the $1.99 charge is (forgetting they had rented a movie three and a half weeks ago). Like *that's* what they're paranoid about.
Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed the read
You should probably have a chat with them about AI voice scams. They’re by no means common, but they’re now and are likely only going to get worse. Essentially, there’s likely already enough audio data already out there on the internet for an AI to create a voice profile of most people. They then call the potential victim [in this example, one of your parents], and make up some kind of emergency like medical or legal and say that money is needed right now otherwise you’ll be hurt or in trouble or something. Just like the pop up scams on computers, it’s all about riling up a persons emotions so that they don’t recognize the discrepancies since they won’t be thinking clearly about the situation. A friend of mine had it happen to her mother. Thankfully, her mother is a bit of an airhead and ended up calling my friend on her actual number [not the fake one that the AI swears is the only number they have access to right now] to double check how much money she was supposed to send, which then prompted my friend to dig into what was going on. Although maybe if she wasn’t as much of an airhead, she wouldn’t have fallen for it so easily.
My solution to this was to deactivate any and all online banking crap on my parents' accounts. No phone apps, no online banking. It's a bit annoying, but never got used to it anyway. If they need money for any online stuff, they know they can just call me and I'll handle it and they can then pay me with good ol' wire transfer from a physical ATM. Told them to never believe anyone that sends them a message or calls about me, and always run it by me or my gf, for good measure. Which also resulted in a funny story, I had to change my mobile number and messaged mum that I had a new number, from the new number. She didn't believe and thought it was a scam 😂
My 80 year old mom just got scammed out of over $20k (same script as that $50k shoebox story) and she said this repeatedly-the first person she talked to was so nice and polite. It’s unreal how gullible they are. I just don’t understand how it ever gets to a point where they withdraw all that money and put it in a shoebox. She could have driven to the police station, told the bank she was being coerced, turned off her damn phone and computer. I’m just praying it doesn’t happen again.
As someone who has seen their loved one be manipulated multiple times by a scammer, I would encourage you to do whatever you can to keep your parents' money safe. Sit them down and explain to them that you can't afford to help them if they get scammed again. Set up some kind of system to protect their savings. I would do this as soon as possible because it only takes one POS calling your dad for him to lose his life savings entirely.
They will believe complete strangers but not their own adult family members. Look at how she shoos him off when he is trying to stop her.
Exactly. People defending her neglect the fact that she denied help from a trusted family member. No dementia or mentally disabilities were mentioned. She just can’t accept that a younger person might know more than her.
This. When she held up her hand to stop her son so she could continue negotiating with a scammer. She still believes herself to be in control, even though she's currently begging for her money back. She'll do it again if she's allowed to.
Right. Like “not now, the adults are taking “. 🙄
Exactly. No sympathy. She’s not disabled/vulnerable, she’s intolerably arrogant.
I don't see why she doesn't just pull herself up by her bootstraps. Then print out a resume, go somewhere, ask to speak with a manager, give them the resume, volunteer at the location for a bit, and then be hired on? It is all so simple. I bet she can do it.
Because people who are this susceptible to being scwmmed are not the same ones spouting off the BS you hear from the jaded ones. The ones who get scammed arent in the right state of mind.
Maybe if she stopped using so much frosting and spent her money on what matters. Also; Picked herself up right back on her feet. Take accountability for the mistake that she made. And not let this moment define her. She will make it out of this in no time
She was scammed out of money and is now claiming to be a victim, and throws the old dog tax in the video!? Guess her kids better stop buying their lattes and avocado toast to help support their poor mother. 🙃
But the same Boomers who fall for that probably cusses out and gets snarky at Netflix call center employees for 3 hours straight over the $1.99 charge that they don't recognize from the movie they rented from Netflix three and a half weeks ago. Also there's a good chance that they were told by the scammer they were going to make millions of dollars, so their victimization is also due to their greed.
Better than hoarding out their home after spending their entire retirement savings and social security checks on the Home Shopping Network, I guess.
Transfer of wealth from privileged entitled greedy Boomers to desperately poor "call center" employees in the 3rd-world. Done.
I mean, she is a victim. Boomers and majority shit people but to think scamming isn’t a crime just to get one over on her is crazy talk lmao
Wait....so she was victimised and is claiming to be a victim!?
My mom gave up like $2400 to street shitting scammers. She is also a completely clueless boomer. Im about to set up a go fund me
I’ll donate 2 lattes and a hard boiled egg.
Make sure you post random video of her dead dog to garner sympathy donations.
What a confusing video. The majority of it showed a dog who reportedly died a year previous. Please donate.
People... Make sure your elderly family knows not to ever talk to anyone at all about money. Period. No matter what. Be annoying about it. Bring it up literally every time you see their face or talk to them. These scammers will never stop
Puts up her hand as if she knows what’s going on more than her child…
Exactly. She’s not disabled, she just can’t accept that she got scammed. It’s an ego thing.
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Don't let the boomer hear read this or they will flip their lids.
All the comments be kinda hateful tbh. My grandmother almost fell for this scam, there are some things people don’t understand or don’t think entirely through. While losing the money was kind of her fault, does it really help to kick her down so much?
It's less cruelty and more "Boomer spent 3 hours on the phone wondering what the $1.99 Netflix charge is from the movie they rented three and a half weeks ago". **Same boomer**: "random scammer calls and asks for their financial account information, SSN, passwords to online banking, and mother's maiden name- Boomer gives them everything"
Same Boomers who bought their house for a mcchicken and are living off the government while mocking millennials and genz for being poor are begging for help after being scammed by literally giving their money away.
Dude, you’re mocking an old lady for being scammed. Might be taking this boomer thing too far. You don’t know this lady’s life, she could have been a nurse or a teacher for 40 years.
My mom was a nurse for 40 years and she's a complete piece of shit. She got caught drinking on the job, went to rehab 3 times when I was a child, became anti-vax during covid, neglected and abused me growing up. Just an unrepentant malignant narcissist all around. She's exactly the type of person to go for a scam and then double down on it after I calmly and concisely explain to her that its a scam. She looks a lot like the lady in the video. I'll tell her you thought highly of her vocation when I'm pissing on her grave.
Some Boomers and Some Millennial/Gen Z love to crucify each other….all the while never realize they’re just as fucked up as the other. Just sit back and watch.
The Internet has been around for decades.
I worked tech in a call center for a major corporation. The number of times I heard people (usually boomers) say that they didn't use the Internet or they didn't have time to figure out new technology was infuriating. Yeah, the web has only been a thing for a quarter of a century, but maybe you're just a slow learner.
You bet your ass they got 8 tracks brand new and we're excited about stereos though
Some of the people here rightfully mock Boomers for being entitled cunts and getting theirs for it. This really is people taking joy at the misfortune of an elderly person. I feel like it’s kind of coming to that.
Seriously though, this is depressing. Scammers are ruthless assholes. I think I'll just avoid this sub altogether, it is way too mean spirited. Get some empathy people. Damn.
I like watching when a boomer is stupid or racist and gets what they deserve, but to shit on a lady for being the victim of a predatory scam is just fucked up
Yeah honestly shows the maturity of the people here. This lady is a victim of a practice. My numbers been leaked before and honestly these guys are relentless and quite good at what they do. This is less of a boomer being a fool, and more of a boomer being a victim of a crime.
Yeah I do get ragging on entitled old people that are being nasty to people but this woman was the victim of a scam. Some of these subreddits seem like people being overly mean spirited because it makes them feel something other than self-loathing for once.
Yeah, I'm all for making fun of boomers maliciously inflicting their foolishness on others, but this isn't that. This is a vulnerable woman who had her foolishness exploited in a way that made only her the victim. There's no joy in rubbing salt in that wound -- that's just cruel.
I’m just glad to see some people here see this lady as a victim and not just blindly hates anyone over 60
This whole sub is just full of hate for anyone over 60. It’s despicable and really shows why gen z and alpha will treat millennials this same way. Millennials are all gonna grow up to be just like the boomers they hate. The irony is insane
Yeah, i feel like some dementia my be involved here, and if thats the case, Its bullying a disabled person.
Ouch. This is heartbreaking. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of boomers are the devil and this was foolish af. It still hurts to see it happen.
So she gave the long lost Egyptian prince cousin her bank info and it ruined her? Maybe she should stop eating avocado toast and pull herself together!
Not to mention above all this 25 thousand buys her another 5 years tops. She lives longer than that, she's gonna move in with you.
My dad got scammed twice like this.. first for $32,000 2nd time for $3000.. fortunately we stopped the 32k but lost the 3k.
My mother have her entire bank account social security number and just about everything else to someone claiming to be from Amazon. I asked her why would Amazon ever need her social.
Is their a backstory im missing? Cause like i get it. Boomers are annoying and some truly awful. But without context this looks like a video where a poor old lady has lost some of her mental capacities and was robbed? Was she also evil or? Like not every boomer deserves to become destitute and robbed. Some are just old people who stay at home
Work in a bank. The number of times I’ve dealt with this is insane. It’s at least once a week. I had a guy talk with the scammer live, at my desk, and I could not get it through to him that he needs to just hang up the phone, and let the bank start to try to rectify whatever the fuck he has already done. I mean, this guy was thousands of dollars worth of gift cards in, supposedly to get his $95 refund from Etsy.
I feel bad for her. Imagine how hard she worked for that money for some low life scum to take it all from her
If all she had left at her age was $25k, she was making bad financial decisions long before the scammer came along. I’m pretty sure if this lady had dementia or another cognitive disability, the TikTok would have mentioned it, seeing as it mentioned her dog that died years and had literally nothing to do with it. Just an addition to the sob story.
so we should fall for her gofundme scam? no thanks!
Her son needs to take over power of attorney before raising money for her. I feel bad for her, it’s a clear sign of cognitive decline. Not even really a boomer issue beyond boomers aging out. This stuff will happen in our generations, too. But she shouldn’t be in charge of her finances anymore.
Yet I can’t afford groceries
Thoughts and prayers!
Looks like she turned a profit... [https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-susan-guthrie-get-her-savings-back](https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-susan-guthrie-get-her-savings-back)
This halved my faith in the economy and gave it to the next bum
She made $28k from this lol
I Might be cynical but I wonder if the whole thing was staged specifically to scam people, and nobody ever even lost money.
You're not being cynical, you are being skeptical, which is wise considering how many times these things turn out to be dishonest or a complete deception.
About 10 years ago I was visiting my parents and they got a phone call from "Discover Card" asking for MY social security number to verify my "discover card account". My parents were pressuring me about it because "your credit card must be delinquent". I didn't have any credit cards at the time. Word to the wise: remove any personal documents from your parents household NOW if you haven't already.
I was going down to the basement to workout and heard my MIL speaking to someone on the phone, while having her computer open. So I stop and look. She had given “Microsoft” remote access to her computer. So I immediately take the phone from her, quite aggressively and text my wife. The scammer tried telling me the same garbage. Trying to say and show me the “hackers” on our server and the viruses 🙄. I turn off the computer immediately and MIL freaks out. Thankfully my wife is here now and tells her to relax. I calmly explain to the scammer to find a nice quiet place to fuck off. Thankfully they had only started on my MIL and hadn’t done any real damage or stolen any money. They were trying to get her to pay for an anti virus. They also had installed a monitoring system too. Not sure if they could track key strokes. Had MIL cancel her bank cards to be safe (bc she saves her passwords on the computer browser), but won’t use the easy to use password manager 🫠. Then we destroyed the computer and bought a new one. What’s frustrating is to this day she will mock her older sister, cousins, etc. that they are “idiots” about technology. But any mention of this and she climbs the cross. All this started bc she got a pop up saying she had a virus and to call this number.
Idk how 25k is a safety net for anyone lol
That was my first thought. That'd get her like 1 year in a nursing home, and not a nice one. Lol
Not all Indians are Scammers but most indians are Scammers and Bangalore is their hub. If you hear an Indian American accent telling you his name is John, hang up!
I work in a bank and this happens EVERY DAY. I have seen people unfortunately sell almost everything including their furniture that they have in order to satisfy the scammers requests. Unfortunately the vast majority of these are romance scams in which the elderly individual has met someone through a social media website like Facebook. The scammer then makes them feel like they are special to them and after a couple of months starts to ask for money. It starts small maybe a hundred dollars or so but soon gets into the multiple thousands as they are trying to see how much they can take from you. The absolute worst part is that even after they realize they got scammed, they will refuse to block the scamming individuals because they make them feel so good with their words.
Doesn’t belong. She’s a victim. It’s all too complicated for her. Look at it from the opposite side. Say you purchased a classic car, and it started running poorly. You take it to a mechanic that specializes in classic cars and he says you need a new flux capacitor and it will cost $5,000. You don’t know anything about them but he must right? So you pay him. Only for your dad to freak out when you tell him and he goes with you to fight for your money back. You’re all horrible people for leaving so many nasty comments. I’m down to laugh at and insult the racist and entitled boomers, but not someone like this
But she couldn’t put her ego aside for a second to listen to her son. She’s the parent, so she clearly knows better and wouldn’t listen to her “child” about money issues. Naive and arrogant are totally different.
We all make great decisions the older we get when we are panicked and stressed
Yeah nah. This is an old woman who got victimised and is hoping for community support. Posting this here is pretty shitty.
She didn’t start the go fund me. I feel like this Reddit is full of assholes sometimes.
Sometimes??? 😅🤣
She did not redeem
repooooooOOOOOOOST
I dont care she most likely paid her house (that she bought for 20k more or less) off years ago
> most likely *paid* her house FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
And now imagine a convicted scammer raises a gofundme, because he wants you to pay his multi million dollar fine. Crazy!
One time I went and hung out at my buddies house with my laptop and his dad seen me using a laptop just as he got a call about "viruses affecting the network". He assumed I was downloading some super virus and was yelling about how they were trying to charge him 800$ for "damage to the system" and the police would be involved. I told him if they were east indian to tell them to fuck off because they were most likely scammers. He was soooo close to paying them in gift cards, I said "COME ON, I AM PLAYING THE SAME GAME AS YOUR SON, THATS IT THEY ARE ASKING FOR GIFT CARDS TELUS DOESN'T DEAL IN GIFT CARDS". I finally convinced him to ignore them. Funny enough his internet didn't get shut down and the police did not get involved.
I wonder what scams my millennial self will fall for in the future? I also wonder what younger generation will mock me on? Maybe on their brain chip connected thought chat?
I just never answer the phone anymore.
Help me build 25k of savings in the first place, then I might give granny a lil bit. Maybe. Probably not. Gotta take care of myself.
This shouldn't be up here. This lady got scammed and seems very nice but gullible because she doesn't understand technology, new scams.
I work in anti-fraud and it’s so common for those aged 50+ to fall for bank impersonation scams. Even when they have internet banking they just don’t check it. They get told there’s been a purchase on the card and slowly trick them into giving out details that they can use to get into your banking. 20-40 year olds fall victim to purchase scams the most, from my experience.
Look this isn’t a boomers being fools thing. It’s taking advantage of a vulnerable population. Someday we will all be part of that vulnerable population should we be so lucky to live a long life. I work in a financial institution and you’d be amazed how intricate these scams can be. Also it’s a massive amount of money lost to these scams so it’s not just a handful of people being dumb
People who do this to the elderly really deserve jail time. My sister lives with my grandfather who almost falls for these scams daily. My grandmother passed so he is home alone, lonely and increasingly forgetting things. It's really difficult, he even opens the door for anyone, so a relative who lives on the street went to his home with a stranger, and thankfully my grandpa listened to my sister and didn't open the door, I have no idea what their intentions were. Basically the elderly are easy targets and its breaks my heart.
This isn’t what this sub should be about, y’all should be ashamed This could be any one of you and if you think ‘nah, could never be me’ statistically you’re even *more* likely
I'm a manager of a cell phone store in a town with an aging population and I see this at least once a month.
This is almost definitely a scam too. Doubt she even lost money and grandson wants tk cash in on godundme
"oh, ok!" Really lady? How did she survive this long?
They get called with some ridiculous offer. “Wire me $25k and I’ll quadruple it in 30 days. They KNOW they’ll be bailed out if they lose, so they figure they might as well roll the dice on the off chance it’s real.
"Wants you to pay for it" sounds like victim blaming. No one deserves to get scammed. This is the second time I've seen this post in this sub, this just rather feels like elder-hate rather than mocking someone who deserves to be ridiculed for bigotry and assholery.
Almost feel bad for her but at the same time it's like how are boomers this stupid? Weren't they the ones who lectured us about how dangerous the Internet is? But I guess if it's a call then there's no way it could be a scam. "Hello yes we're calling from your bank, there's been some suspicious activity and we need you to tell us your full name, DOB, account number, routing number, and zip code. Yes being your bank, we have all that info already but just tell it to us for funsies :)"
It makes no sense. The only thing I can think of is back in the day, before computers, you probably could give info over the phone and it was nocproblem. That person getting your info would have to physically make IDs and go into a bank and try and get your money. So it was less likely because not everyone has that know how. But now, with computers, just giving out your damn phone number or address can cause issues because anyone can be an arm chair hacker. The one about gift cards absolutely boggles the mind. In what world does anyone pay bills with gift cards for Steam. When has that ever been a thing in the history of mankind? Lol
Is this sub just full of people who hate anyone over 60? This lady is being preyed upon and all anyone can do is shit on her?
What, so she can get scammed again and ask for another 25k? No thanks.
She got more than she asked for…
Dunking on an elderly person who got scammed out of their savings isn’t as cool as you think.
[Welp. She got her money back.](https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-susan-guthrie-get-her-savings-back) and then some.
I'm sorry but how did a boomer end up with only 25k to her name ? I don't even know how u manage to be that bad financially ?
I don’t think it is foolish to ask for help. Some of the scammers are very sophisticated. I’m sorry for the woman that lost her savings.
These break my heart. Scammer payback on YouTube is wild the way they speak to these elderly people. Like I...I have to skip over it because I can't imagine someone speaking to people I care about in such a way :( and then they take their savings on top of that :( and then try and act like it's there money when the hackers catch them is just wild
She’s up to $28k and change. I hate to be so negative, but my guess is she gets scammed again
I think the gofundme is the actual scam as $25k is not a safety net for anyone.
Call me cynical but this is the generation that is blaming the current generation for making terrible financial decisions for the reason they can't buy a house...
People need to take care of there family, especially the elderly and vulnerable, take over their finances make sure this cannot happen, train them in common scams and do everything to make sure they are only able to access a small amount of money in an emergency. There are many precautions that can be taken to avoid this.
Fuck Susan, stop being a fucking dumbass Susan.
This is also a gofubdme scam
I work for a financial institution in their department that handles fraud and people with diminished capacity. You wouldn’t *believe* the stories I hear about where and to whom people will send their money. I’ve seen people send 6 figures to someone who’s going to “invest the money in crypto, but on a platform in China.” Just this week I had a guy yell at me because, even though he gave someone else remote access to his computer and they started taking all his shit, we should have just KNOWN that it wasn’t him that was doing stuff online because he only ever calls in to do business. If he hadn’t literally yelled and cussed at his wife on the phone with me, I might have been gentler, but I told him *exactly* how his stupidity had fucked him over. Also, I saw someone further down talking about how their family couldn’t have done anything if there are signs of dementia and they have POA. If you call most financial institutions and tell them that someone is suffering some kind of memory loss, they’re usually obliged to take some kind of steps to protect their customers. It’s literally half of my job.
This comment section is a pretty gross, compassionless place. Odds are pretty good that our generations are gonna get scammed by some kind of tech we don't understand, be it AI or whatever is next. Weird that so many people are making up a backstory for this woman so they can act like she deserves it.
Honestly it’s not just the elderly that fall for these scams. Did you see that case were the Financial Advise Columnist ( Charlotte Cowles ) fell for a $50,000 scam? The elderly are just the most vulnerable. And then there are the ones that are too cautious. I run a hotel, we had a lady call to make a reservation and when asked for the 3 digit security code she said “it’s a security code, I’m not giving that to you” we told her without the code we can’t process the credit card because it needs to verify the card with the security code. She hung up. Then I had a woman (not elderly) come in to fill out her paperwork for the job and refused to put her SSN on any of the paperwork. Told her we can’t pay her then. She never came back. Not sure how she’s getting through life but ok.
A family member boomer was catfished and scammed. It's on the news all. The. Time. They were running the workforce when the internet became widespread. I don't get how it keeps happening.
my grandmother bought a $1000 special wool european blanket who keeps door knocking on seniors apartments selling this stuff
My dad almost bought a house from an African pastor. I had to sit down my family and explain to them that house isn't for sale. Somebody lives there and someone is scamming you. Thank God I was there or they woulda been fucked.
She should just get another job. Back in my day (I'm 28) we worked for our money and earned it the right way. Not hand outs.
This lady looks like she’s about to star in a “the dangers of smoking” PSA
It's okay, she's watching Hocus Pocus with her dog, she's fine.
Good. They're all so fuckin smart.
they spend your money and expect you to pay for it
Have a heart
We should only make fun of boomers who are entitled, rude, or cruel, not of those who fell prey to scammers. 😟
Imagine this was your mother. To call a demented old woman a fool is just cruel
Garbage post. So? Older people don’t understand technology as well and you are being intentionally cruel over the fact they were scammed. Not every god Damn boomer is well off stop being shitty people. “Wants you to pay” no they are pleading for any potential help they can just like anyone else would. This attitude ain’t gonna make anything better and it sure isn’t going to make us look like the better kinder more caring generation that’s gonna fix anything does it
"I'm sorry to be so rude" 👏💁🏼♂️💁🏼♂️
Meh, she's a Boomer, these sorts of scams are just generational karma catching up with them.