'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.php

It started with a voice mail on Jaime Bardacke’s cell phone that sounded work-related. It came on Father’s 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 bank’s app, but she couldn’t 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.