Scammers stole more than $3.4 billion from older Americans last year, an FBI report says WASHINGTON -- Scammers stole more than $3.4 billion from older Americans last year, according to an FBI report released Tuesday that shows a rise in losses through increasingly sophisticated criminal tactics to trick the vulnerable into giving up their life savings. Losses from scams reported by Americans over the age of 60 last year were up 11% over the year before, according to the FBI's report. Investigators are warning of a rise in brazen schemes to drain bank accounts that involve sending couriers in person to collect cash or gold from victims. “It can be a devastating impact to older Americans who lack the ability to go out and make money,” said Deputy Assistant Director James Barnacle of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. “People lose all their money. Some people become destitute." ... https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/scammers-stole-34-billion-older-americans-year-fbi-109788708 I wasn't too sure which sub-forum this would fit best in, since it's not really a political matter, but I find it to be an interesting and tragic situation. I also enjoy watching various "scambaiters" mess with these scumbags. There are many who even do live streams and post YouTube videos and seem to basically earn a living or extra income from it. They usually mess with the tech support and refund scammers, and they typically operate out of call centers in India. But I guess these romance scams are more of an Asian phenomenon and often involve human trafficking victims as well, whereas the Indian scammers are regular employees. It's kind of wild that they also employ mules and such in the US to receive funds, including even going to people's doors to pick up cash or other valuables. So many of them will try to get people to wire money or even use gift cards. It's kind of crazy to me that anyone would think a government agency or a company such as Norton or Geek Squad would send them to CVS or Target to buy gift cards in order to facilitate a payment.
A lot of these scammers are non-American citizens. Either foreigners who come to the U.S. just to carry out their scams there (I actually met one, a Romanian man), or people in other countries scamming vulnerable people through the internet. (For some reason most of the scammers in last group seem to come from Black countries like Nigeria and Jamaica) There are a huge number of Eastern European scammers in the U.S., particularly from the countries of Romania and Bulgaria. A few Lebanese too. The Black people in other countries scamming Americans through the internet typically target vulnerable old people with declining mental faculties, or desperate people seeking romance (more often middle aged women), who get sucked into a fake online relationship. In recent years they've also come up with some creative scams, using artificial intelligence algorithms to copy someone else's voice, and then they call that person's family member claiming they desperately immediately need money for some reason, like supposedly they are in a hospital, or have been taken to jail. The scams used can be very creative and effective, coming up with some reason why the money is needed urgently and cannot be sent through normal channels. Sometimes the family member falls into the scam, especially if they cannot immediately get in contact with their actual family member over the phone. The scammers can carry out this scam from another country, but in some cases they might actually have someone sent to the U.S. to assist with the scam in some way, even though the victim is tricked into sending their money to an account based in another country.
Another scam very popular is used on people who try to sell some items on FB or other forums. Scammer sends a check with double amount of item price, claims they did it by mistake and asks for the return of the overpaid amount.
