Greg's Corner

When scammers come back for more

By Greg Collier

There are many truths when it comes to scammers. For this particular story, we’re going to be focusing on two. The first is that scammers tend to target the elderly when it comes to many scams. The scammers feel that elderly individuals are not tech-savvy enough to see through many of their scams. That and the fact that many seniors live alone and don’t have anyone in their home to warn them that whatever it is, it might be a scam. The second truth is that once someone has fallen victim to a scam, there’s a good chance the scammers will try to victimize them again.

Recently, a man from Upstate New York, had fallen victim to an elder scam. The report doesn’t say which scam he fell for, but if we had to hazard a guess, it was probably the grandparent scam, or maybe the tech support scam. Either way, the man almost assuredly lost a substantial amount of money. Then he received another phone call. This mystery caller said he knew who initially scammed the man. All the man had to do was pay the caller $6000 and the caller would hand over the information. As they say, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. The man contacted local police, who arranged a meeting with the caller and arrested him. Again, while the report doesn’t go into further detail, it’s a safe bet that this man allegedly had something to do with the initial scam.

There is no shame in admitting you’ve been a victim of a scam. It happens to almost everybody at one time or another. They can range for paying someone $20 to cut your lawn, and they never come back, or it can result in major financial loss. Either way, if you do lose money in a scam, it will help others if you come forward to police. This way, police can be on the lookout for the scam and arrest any possible con artists.