What everyone can learn from the woman who lost $50,000 to a scam
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/17/scam-tips-columnist-50k/https://archive.ph/cXb91
What everyone can learn from the woman who lost $50,000 to a scam
Don’t want to end up handing a box of cash to scammers? Watch for these red flags.
By Heather Kelly
February 17, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EST
Everyone thinks they’re too smart to fall for a scam until it happens to them.
Today, you might be making fun of the financial-advice writer who went viral for putting $50,000 in cash in a box and handing it to a stranger. Tomorrow, you or someone you love could be falling for a less dramatic scam.
In her article for New York Magazine’s the Cut, journalist Charlotte Cowles describes in detail how she fell for an elaborate scam that used fear, technology and her data to convince her it was real. A caller posed as someone from Amazon, then transferred her to someone posing as a Federal Trade Commission liaison, then someone claiming to be from the CIA and finally the scammers convinced her to withdraw cash and hand it over to a stranger outside her home.
The end result sounds wild on its own, but broken down step by step the scam did include the kinds of convincing details that frequently trick people. Here’s what we can all learn from this scam.
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https://www.thecut.com/article/amazon-scam-call-ftc-arrest-warrants.html
https://archive.ph/YJG9z
Feb. 15, 2024
The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger I never thought I was the kind of person to fall for a scam.
By Charlotte Cowles, the Cut’s financial-advice columnist.
On a Tuesday evening this past October, I put $50,000 in cash in a shoe box, taped it shut as instructed, and carried it to the sidewalk in front of my apartment, my phone clasped to my ear. “Don’t let anyone hurt me,” I told the man on the line, feeling pathetic.
“You won’t be hurt,” he answered. “Just keep doing exactly as I say.”
Three minutes later, a white Mercedes SUV pulled up to the curb. “The back window will open,” said the man on the phone. “Do not look at the driver or talk to him. Put the box through the window, say ‘thank you,’ and go back inside.”
The man on the phone knew my home address, my Social Security number, the names of my family members, and that my 2-year-old son was playing in our living room. He told me my home was being watched, my laptop had been hacked, and we were in imminent danger. “I can help you, but only if you cooperate,” he said. His first orders: I could not tell anyone about our conversation, not even my spouse, or talk to the police or a lawyer.
Now I know this was all a scam — a cruel and violating one but painfully obvious in retrospect. Here’s what I can’t figure out: Why didn’t I just hang up and call 911? Why didn’t I text my husband, or my brother (a lawyer), or my best friend (also a lawyer), or my parents, or one of the many other people who would have helped me? Why did I hand over all that money — the contents of my savings account, strictly for emergencies — without a bigger fight?
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Subtle differences:
I have learned to hang up the minute the caller doesn't answer my hello.
I have alerted my medical providers, who are using cell phones. Also there is a tell tale sound when they pick up the call, if I wait that long. My phone doesn't a neat little setting like yours. 
I will try this suggestion. 
It was shear Hell!!!!! Thank god I saw the red flags since they did everything listed in the link. I have learned a lot about scammers since then and it is all really, really bad. I watched You Tube videos of nailing scammers in India and it made me puke. They are evil sociopaths and monsters why justify their crimes by saying Americans are rich and can afford it. Their own governments do not do anything to stop them since they benefit financially. Our govt can't do anything since it is out of our jurisdiction.
I have had to close bank accounts, destroy all my checks, have my computer cleaned, and am still trying to get the IRS up to date as well as filing police reports. Basically I have been a basket case since then. Thank god I do not trust anyone and have never done banking on-line, no direct deposit and I pay my bills with the USPS (which sucks more than ever and many checks never arrived at all and I have to pay late fees). I hate living in 2024. This is not "living", this is a life long lesson in the loss of trust in our institutions and fellow humans.
My 85 year old mother almost lost tons of $$$ and her neighbor is the one who realized what was happening before it was too late. THE ARE PURE EVIL!!!!! They will use every trick in the book and terrify you. Since I remembered what happened to my mom I saw the red flags myself before I was robbed. It was like they were HELPING ME! It also was similar to a kidnapping and ransom $$$ secrecy. Apparently they are religious hypocrites as far as Karma is concerned.
Every person that I have spoken to in the tech industry agrees that they should be shot. I think that is too good for them. Make them suffer like their victims did....senior citizens, college students, etc. I lost 5 pounds in 3 days from throwing up and about got only about 28 total hours of sleep in a week due the scammers.
(which shows precisely how tech-attuned I am). 
