They’re getting better at this
Wednesday January 26th 2022, 9:23 pm
Filed under: Friends,Life

An elderly person dear to me got hacked yesterday.

And today, another elderly friend, chatting like she does and asking after my family, told me happily about the quarter million dollar check that had arrived by FedEx from Publisher’s Clearing House and how nice it was that they look out for the elderly and disabled like that and had I signed up for that, too?

I advised caution.

No, no, she’d taken it to her bank and they’d accepted it.

I reminded her of a mutual widowed friend who, at about 90, was swindled out of the house she’d owned free and clear for decades and had found herself thrown out on the street in utter bewilderment.

There was no unconvincing her.

I linked to Publisher Clearing House’s own website where they warned against frauds being committed in their name and say that even banks have been fooled into thinking the checks are real–until they find out they are not.

I asked if she’d called PCH to make sure it was real. She hesitated, then said she had, and I thought, if you did, did you look it up online or did you call the scammer’s number? Because there is nothing legitimate about this.

So since she was a friend from church I got off Facebook and mentioned it to those in a better position to step in and help; she sure wasn’t listening to me.

To which one of them said, could that have been a fake? Basically, (she didn’t quite say outright) was the person they were trying to scam–you?

It was indeed a duplicate of her profile. Reported now.

I guess I learned a little humility myself on the gullibility index today.


3 Comments so far
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Yikes!

Comment by ccr in MA 01.27.22 @ 9:20 am

I guess one moral to the story is–TALK to a person, on the phone, in matters of grave concern; then it’s clear pretty fast whether or not it’s them.

Comment by Marian 01.27.22 @ 11:40 pm

Oh no! Dirty rotten scammers! My mom mentioned her laptop quit working, and then the next day miraculously worked again. A few more questions and I learned she’d gotten a banner from “Microsoft” alerting her that a file was missing and her computer was no longer usable. Luckily she just turned it off and didn’t follow their steps to “fix” her computer.

Comment by DebbieR 01.29.22 @ 11:37 am



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