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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums'He held me hostage with no gun but with his words': The phone scam gaslighting therapists
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/phone-scam-therapists-16483251.phpIt started with a voice mail on Jaime Bardackes cell phone that sounded work-related. It came on Fathers Day, and the licensed clinical social worker was driving back to her San Francisco apartment after visiting family, eager to eat dinner and watch the NBA playoffs.
That message kicked off a harrowing 6½-hour odyssey during which she was fleeced of thousands of dollars as she drove around San Francisco and the Peninsula on the phone with a swindler who was in her head both literally through her earbuds and metaphorically through manipulation tactics.
The caller instructed her to go a nearby ATM. Her daily withdrawal limit was $800. He told her to increase the limit via the banks app, but she couldnt do it I was getting more and more flustered; it was hard to figure out so he told her to call the bank while he stayed on the line, listening in. She upped the limit to $1,500 and withdrew that amount.
The caller told Bardacke to go to a nearby Safeway to buy prepaid Visa cards with the money.
I know part of me has empathy. This could happen to anyone, I would like to say. But read the whole article. I wonder if Therapists are vulnerable to being conned more than other professionals.
vercetti2021
(10,156 posts)Kitboga being the most notorious. He'll keep them on the phone for hours just fucking with them. Scamming scammers is becoming a big thing to get back at these people
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)It's viciously entertaining.
rownesheck
(2,343 posts)Hang the phone up, especially if someone is asking you to withdraw money or asking for personal info.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,841 posts)wouldn't already know that these kinds of calls are always, always scams.
Especially the part about withdrawing money and buying prepaid cards. This information has been out there for years now. Perhaps those who fall for it have never been on social media, don't read a newspaper, never watch TV, least of all the news. I mean, how large is the rock you have to be living under not to have learned about these scams by now?
I periodically get similar bullshit calls and just hang right up. And I'm not a therapist.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,325 posts)One is that a threat to a therapists license is a powerful motivator because their livelihood depends on that.
Another is that many therapists are committed to trying to understand other people and see their humanity.
Theres an empathy therapists have that I think can get easily exploited, Bardacke said.
(snip)
Any person can be susceptible to one of these scams, said Castel, the UCLA professor. Its not just lonely older people. Its often very intelligent, rational people who are looking to solve a problem. Victims arent necessarily gullible, ignorant or uneducated; often it is the exact opposite.
cinematicdiversions
(1,969 posts)WhiskeyGrinder
(22,325 posts)society. This particular scam plays on the fear therapists have of losing their licenses. Once you lose your profession, you're in direct danger of losing your house and means of support.
cinematicdiversions
(1,969 posts)The details of driving from store to store buying gift really stretches my credulity.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,325 posts)cinematicdiversions
(1,969 posts)Are particularly well... they have a disposition to perhaps not critically think.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,325 posts)The scammer plays on traits we all have: a desire to help, a desire to do the right thing and fix a problem, fear of social or financial failure, fear of being exposed, and the tendency to keep going even when things get weird. A person is vulnerable when they're surprised, and these days, we're all preoccupied with something. If a person hasn't heard about a particular scam -- people who get scammed generally don't like to talk about it afterward, because they often find others second-guess them -- then when the scam hits them, they don't instantly think "scam," they think, "what is going on, this person must tell me more."
I have two friends who were taken in by scammers -- one a freelancer who got a fake IRS call talking about back taxes (a big concern among freelancers) and one a mother who got a call from someone saying he was a lawyer representing her son in a car accident. Both were caught by these calls in the middle of something else (the freelancer driving in rush hour, the mother dealing with a sick family member). Critical thinking, as an objective examination, is highly susceptible to outside influences, no matter how good someone is at it.
Hugin
(33,120 posts)which come into my home daily, sometimes hourly, trying to rob me, take me away from other real business, and my pursuit of happiness.
I would throw my full support behind any candidate for any office who would seriously go after these criminals.
The amount of damage to the legitimate economy waged by this activity must be staggering.