‘Oh, mom. This is a scam’ — Woman lost $52K; How to protect yourself

The message persisted for several days. Entering her password only produced a message saying “Your password was changed four days ago.”

“I thought, ‘Hmm, did I do that? I don’t remember doing that,‘” she said.

Unable to do anything to access her account, she brought the device to an Apple store, which told her they could not provide Google support, but suggested she contact Google directly for help. The woman, whose husband died several years ago, told her sister of the situation and her sister provided numbers she found online for Google support.

Calling those numbers would take her down a very expensive journey — involving clandestine visits to her bank to withdraw more than $50,000 — one from which she is still reeling.

Fraud reports reach records levels

The Dayton Daily News agreed not to identify the Kettering woman because she is a fraud victim. She agreed to share her story — braving the embarrassment that fraud victims often feel — in the hopes it’ll help other people avoid such scams.

A recent Dayton Daily News analysis found consumer fraud complaints to the Federal Trade Commission from the Dayton metro area increased 15% last year to an all-time high of 8,820.

The most common type of fraud reported is imposter scams, when a fraudster will try to trick someone into thinking they are with the government or another agency.

Scams and fraud appear to affect older Americans more significantly. More than 101,000 individuals aged 60 and older reported such crimes to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in 2023, whereas individuals under the age of 20 were the least impacted, with approximately 18,000 victims reporting incidents.

Elder fraud complaints to the IC3 rose by 14% in 2023, and associated losses increased by about 11%, according to IC3’s most recent Elder Fraud Report, which it released last year.

Scams targeting people aged 60 years old and older led to more than $3.4 billion in losses—a rise of 11% from 2022. On average, victims of elder fraud lost $33,915.

‘A bad sign’

The Kettering woman called the California-based number she was given. A man who answered told her he was Ivan Rodriguez, a technician for Google and Apple, and instructed her to install an app to allow him to access her device, then asked her to find and read off her settings.

When she did so, he immediately told her it was “a bad sign.”

“He conned me into thinking he had awareness,” she said. “He was very helpful, cooperative, very pleasant, and gave me his full name, gave me another number (where) I could call direct to him if we should get cut off.”

Credit: Bryant Billing

Credit: Bryant Billing

The man further earned her confidence by providing his employee ID number and a ticket number for the woman’s case.

The woman said the scammer told her the alleged parties accessing her device were “pros” located in places stateside and worldwide and locating them would be a challenge.

He said he would connect her to her bank’s fraud department on a secure line. When he did so, “Rodriguez” and a “Peter Jones” who said he was from her bank worked in tandem to further gain her confidence.

“The first guy (Rodriguez) was telling me that they had already have evidence that someone’s trying to get in there to take a big amount out to do child porn, all sorts of things that would look bad on my record and then Peter Jones said he was doing cryptocurrency stuff and all that.

“I should have said ‘I’ll get back to you some other time,’ then called my bank and told them ‘Put holds on everything. Don’t let anything go out,’ but ... they just convinced me.”

‘Oh, mom. This is a scam’

The con men told her of a supposed loophole to get her money in a safe place: go to her bank and transfer money from her account to a Bitcoin account.

“That was how it all began and that’s where I was stupid,” she said. “Unfortunately, that’s exactly what this did. It really makes you feel awfully vulnerable, you know? We all know about this going on, these kinds of things, but this one was different. I called them, I initiated, you know? I just thought this was a different situation.”

She went to her bank on Feb. 20, taking out a total of $40,000 via separate transactions at four different locations. The next day she visited another branch and transferred an additional $10,000.

“They (the scammers) kept me on the phone, (which was) in my pocket, not talking to them, but ... kind of keeping their ear on things,” she said. They said, ‘Now don’t say anything to any of the employees, because we don’t know that one of them isn’t maybe in cahoots with this.“

That, she said, made her cautious about answering bank officials’ questions truthfully.

“The first thing (bank officials) said is, ‘Are you being coerced in any way?’ and I said, ‘Oh, no, I’m I’m taking cash out for my daughter and her husband. They’re needing a down payment quickly for a property.”

“Jones” also connected the woman with someone claiming to be from the FTC who told her they would send someone from the Social Security Administration to give her a new number to safeguard her credit.

The scam began to unravel when the woman talked to her daughter.

“She said, ‘Oh, mom. This is a scam. It’s got to be a scam.”

$12.5B in losses

New FTC data shows consumers reported losing $12.5 billion via fraud in 2024, which was a 25% increase from 2023. Ohio’s top three were business imposters, online shopping and government imposters.

The largest scam losses in 2024 nationwide were through bank transfers, totaling $2 billion, according to the FTC.

Phone scams resulted in the highest median loss per person at $1,500, the commission said. Imposter scams continued to be the most frequently reported type of fraud.

The Ohio Attorney General’s Office cautions to never allow strangers remote access:

“Know that technical support companies will not call you if there is a problem with your device,” the AG’s Office warns.

‘We trust people’

The Kettering woman’s daughter advised her to contact the bank to halt all transactions, but the scammers had already taken the money.

“I feel like I was snookered or just taken advantage of,” she said. “I’m a rule follower. I tried to do what the right people are telling me to do, and I thought they were the right people, but it was obviously bad judgment on my part.”

She said her sister feels “complete, horrible guilt” about providing the phone numbers that led to the fraud and even brought her a $10,000 check as part of her apology.

The woman said she reported the crime to police, but was told there was nothing they could do about it as they are not equipped for such matters.

They gave her a pamphlet with information, including how to contact the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, the Federal Trade Commission and the FBI’s Internet Crimes Complaint Center, or IC3, “the central hub for reporting cyber-enabled crime.”

The woman said the scam does not cripple her financially, but it does put a dent in her savings.

“It was my hope that if my kids ... (or) my adult grandchildren, needed anything in a hurry or needed something that they weren’t prepared for, I could get it to them right away,” she said. “I’m okay, but I am not as nearly as comfortable as I was ... and now I’m canceling some of the charities I’ve been donating to.

“I was trying to do good stuff, and I don’t know if I can.”

The woman said she reached out to tell her story to raise awareness and prevent others from suffering the same fate.

“Our older generation, I know they take advantage of us partly because of our lack of speedy technology ... and if you learn something five days later, it’s changed anyway, and then you got to learn something new.”

The woman said she believers scammers also target older people “because of the fact that that we trust people.”

“We grew up trusting people,” she said. “We knew people we shouldn’t trust, but we weren’t expecting every other Tom, Dick and Harry to be trying to take advantage and I think we are gullible for it. We’re less likely to be able to pinpoint (scams).”

FRAUD TIPS

Consumers who believe they have been scammed should file a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office at www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov or by calling 800-282-0515.

Google, in its “avoid common payment scams” portion of its support section, said scammers sometimes pose as Google customer service or tech support to request money transfers.

The company said its customer service or tech support will never ask for:

“If you’re asked to do any of these things, it’s a scam,” Google said.