My mom got scammed AGAIN

[dr.girlfriend]

This time she called *them*!  

I guess she wanted to track her steps with her iWatch so she googled "Apple Support" and some scam number came up.  

They told her that her account was hacked and talked her into a bunch of different things, including changing her banking password, doing something with her Venmo, typing in her whole SSN, making a transfer from her bank account, etc.  She downloaded something from the app store and she doesn't even know what.  It is almost identical to what happened last time and yet once again she was insisting and insisting that it was not a scam because she asked the guy and he said very clearly that he was from "Apple Security." 

Anyway, watch out for your older relatives.  Even though this exact same thing happened to her before, she did not make the connection. 

[whitemerlot]

Oh no! My mom is always online and so naive that I worry for her.

[sadlebred]

I'm really sorry. This makes me glad that my dad is a technophobe and even disconnected his internet service at home....

[scout8]

Oh no. I'm sorry.

[tcu2003]

I am so sorry. That stinks.

[chpmnk1015]

Oh no im so sorry

[Wallflower]

I'm so sorry this happened to her, and to you. It is really hard to find ways to protect seniors when they aren't willing to give up control and don't see the risks that we see. I wish I had some good suggestions for you!

My stepmother has fallen for every scam out there. And she was incredibly resistant to letting my stepsister (J) take over her finances. It got so bad, they had every piece of information they'd need to just take over her accounts with her credit card and bank and did more than once. She lost tens of thousands of dollars, I'm sure. They even tried to steal her travel miles.

Thankfully, she finally decided to move into a retirement home (years overdue) and J took advantage of that to change all her phone numbers and pretty much pushed her way into taking control over the finances. Oh, and Stepmom keeps forgetting her password for her computer, so she's pretty much stopped using that. One benefit to early-stage dementia?

[spinnaker5]

Oh man - sorry to hear that. Would she be willing to put a credit freeze on her cards, or other safeguards? Just whatever can be done to lock things down.

[flygirl]

That’s so frustrating. A relative of mine gave away 1/2 her life savings to a scammer and you could not tell her any differently. I know the scammers are professionals at what they do but I told her over and over again not to give money because then it was a red flag. She did any way.

[livinitup]

That’s terrible. Just so you know, we have really high security safeguards at my job and they “pen test” us every month because according to experts, PEOPLE are the biggest liability in the security wall. Not every month, but some months at least one person falls for the scam test. It’s really shocking.

[dr.girlfriend]

Sept 24, 2024 13:20:01 GMT -5 spinnaker5 said:

Oh man - sorry to hear that. Would she be willing to put a credit freeze on her cards, or other safeguards? Just whatever can be done to lock things down.

Thanks -- fortunately we froze all her credit the first time this happened in 2020.  

It's just discouraging because it was a little more understandable then -- my father (her husband of 50 years) had just passed away, and I think she was really vulnerable.  

What's shocking is that this time they used the exact same story and talked her through doing some of the exact same things as last time, and it still didn't raise any red flags for her!  They did the whole "Your account has been hacked, we need you to help catch the scammer" thing which was the same thing they said last time.  They talked her through changing her banking password, as they did last time.  They talked her through downloading a program that let them remote access her phone as they did last time. 

Not only did she fall for it again, but (as she did last time) she continued to argue with me about how it was definitely legit this time, but at least only for a few hours instead of days. 

The bright side is, we froze her credit last time and changed all her account numbers last time, and I wouldn't let her set up Zelle with her new bank account so they couldn't do a direct transfer.  Last time she was out the amount of the transfers she made, but this time they did some AppleCash thing that the bank was able to stop and reverse in time.  I also knew to have someone check her phone to see what remote access program she downloaded so we could delete it before she used that phone to reaccess with her new passwords.

And, in her defense, this time SHE called THEM.  She was having an issue with her iWatch, and she must have googled "Apple Support" -- when I googled it from my phone the first hit was a Sponsored number that was obviously NOT Apple Support so I think that's what happened.  They talked her through all this but that was partly why she was so insistent that they were "real" Apple support people.