Most of the time victims of financial scams cannot recover their money because they withdrew funds willingly and paid using cash or gift cards which is impossible to recover.
This is the most cruel aspect of fraud.
We want to help. We will set up a gofundme to assist in recovering those funds. Contact us for more info!
Marie is a very special person to us here at Cyber Scam Watchdog and the inspiration behind this website as well as our focus on victim advocacy.
Marie is so ashamed about the fact that she fell victim to a scam that we cannot use her real name or even allude to how we know her. This is wrong and why we want to help victims such as Marie. Marie is a VICTIM. She did not cause this to happen to her and is not gullible or stupid. But all too often victims of scams become further victimized by people's cruel and insensitive remarks about how they should not have "fallen for" a scam. More about the psychological manipulation of scammers in this blog post. (link). Scroll down for Marie's story.
Marie is a woman in her 70's. She was windowed at the age of 48 and never remarried. She is a retired teacher and an amazing mother, grandmother, sister and friend. Anyone who knows Marie describes her as sweet, kind, generous and loving, This is a person who EVERYBODY loves. She is a very smart and educated woman.
In January of 2024 Marie was experiencing issues with her internet and iPad. Being a self-sufficient problem-solver she googled the number to Apple support in order to seek assistance for her iPad. Unfortunately the link she followed was not Apple support but a page scammers set up to catch victims looking for help.
She called the number and was speaking to someone she thought was from Apple tech support. This person ensured her that he would help and asked for some information from Marie. Upon providing her info the person she was speaking to alerted her that her social security number has been compromised and has been associated with serious crimes involving child pornography. He also informed her that all her accounts were in danger as well as the accounts of her loved ones since "the bad guys" now had access to all her information and knew everything about her, her children and grandchildren. But don't worry, said the person on the line, he would HELP HER.
All Marie had to hear was that her family could be in danger and she was ready to do anything she had to do to prevent the "bad guys" from harming her family. This is how she ended up doing things that may sound ridiculous to the average person. The REAL bad guy was the one she was talking to on the phone. He reassured Marie that he was there to help and transferred her to an FTC agent who would help to safeguard her money. Marie was transferred to "Eric" who said he was an FTC agent and provided a badge number. Eric walked Marie through the steps she needed to take to make sure her money remained safe and could not be used for nefarious purposes like the crimes she was told was already associated with her social security number. Eric had Marie go to her bank and withdraw cash from her accounts. She was to keep him on the phone, in her purse while she did this. He instructed her to tell NO ONE what was going on to keep them safe otherwise the "bad guys" would know and would target them too. He convinced Marie that the bad guys were listening and would know if she tried to contact anyone to tell them what was happening. Eric told Marie exactly what to say at the bank in order to not arouse suspicion with the sizable withdrawal she was about to make. She was to tell the bank it was for a vacation and Eric was listening as she went to the bank with her cell in her purse. Marie had to sign a paper at the bank saying that there was no one telling her to do this against her will. She did. Why? Because Eric told her the bank teller could be in on this terrible thing that was going on with her accounts. This is the extreme psychological hold Eric was able to have on Marie with the intense maniplulation he was unloading on her.
Marie went from branch to brach withdrawing thousands of dollars at a time. She was then instructed to wrap the cash in tin foil, put it in a shoe box and mail it to an address in California. There the "good guys" would put all her money in a private account to keep it safe where she could retrieve it once her social had been cleared from the crimes associated with it. Some of the money withdrawn was used to purchase gift cards. Marie read the gift card numbers to Eric over the phone. This whole process went on for days. Marie told no one, was not sleeping or eating during this time because she was so distraught. When it was all said and done Marie had withdrawn about $50,000 of her hard earned money and sent it to these people with the promise of getting it back. Eric told Marie he would call her the next day once the money was safe to be returned. Marie waited for the call. It did not come. Marie called Eric back at the number he had been calling from - it was no longer in service.
Once Marie connected the dots she realized she had been scammed she was devestated. She called me in tears, horrified and desperate. I was equally horrified and angry at the awful people who did this to her. I helped her file a police report, change all passwords and enable two-factor authentication, wiped her computer clean, changed her home wifi network name and password, and instructed her to go to her banks and explain what happened and to file a report with the FTC and FBI. I vowed I would help her get her money back.
I searched online for victim resources and surprisingly did not find many. Cyber crimes and scams are HUGE affecting millions of people per year costing billions of dollars in losses and yet there are no funds or resouorces to help these victims get their hard earned money back. The banks were sympathetic but no help because she withdrew the money herself. Marie was defeated. She could have kept fighting but was emotionally drained and did not want to have to continuously be reminded of this terrible time as she retold her story in an attempt to reclaim her money.
That is where Cyber Scam Watchdog comes in. It is our mission to help these scam survivors recover their funds. Through either donation fund sites or by pairing them up with generous organizations or humanitarians, we here at CSW intend to make these victims whole again.
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