Elder Scam Prevention Resources are listed at the bottom of the descriptions and the end of the Transcript.
Unlock the secrets to shielding our seniors from financial predators with Kaitlin Cooke, a former federal prosecutor turned guardian of elder justice. Through her seasoned lens, we investigate the disturbing increase in scams swindling the elderly and dissect the psychological and demographic factors making our senior loved ones prime targets. Our dialogue illuminates the dark corners of government imposter tricks, mystery shopper setups, and the frightening ease with which these swindlers weave their deceitful webs. Learn how to spot the danger signs and employ robust strategies to fortify our treasured elders against these fraudulent onslaughts.
Kaitlin and I dissect the multifaceted nature of scam awareness and prevention, offering a guide to validating unexpected offers and preserving trust without falling victim to manipulation. The conversation traverses the emotional devastation left in the wake of these crimes and the paramount importance of reporting to authorities to aid in prosecution. As we unveil why many victims remain silent, we emphasize the collective responsibility to raise alarm bells and equip society with the tools to counteract these threats. Join us as we empower listeners with knowledge and resources that not only protect the vulnerable but strengthen the fabric of trust within our communities.
Finally, we chart the course for safeguarding against the most sinister of online frauds, navigating the labyrinth of international call center scams that exploit the trusting nature of their victims. Hear firsthand the strategies that can prevent financial disaster and support the healing process for those ensnared by scammers. With an empathetic yet vigilant approach, we offer a lifeline through avenues for reporting fraud and highlight the long-term financial ramifications for the unsuspecting. This episode is a must-listen, equip yourself and your loved ones with the shield of awareness to confront the faceless adversaries lurking in the digital shadows.
Where to Get Educated
Elder Scam Prevention Resources are listed at the bottom of the descriptions and the end of the Transcript.
Unlock the secrets to shielding our seniors from financial predators with Kaitlin Cooke, a former federal prosecutor turned guardian of elder justice. Through her seasoned lens, we investigate the disturbing increase in scams swindling the elderly and dissect the psychological and demographic factors making our senior loved ones prime targets. Our dialogue illuminates the dark corners of government imposter tricks, mystery shopper setups, and the frightening ease with which these swindlers weave their deceitful webs. Learn how to spot the danger signs and employ robust strategies to fortify our treasured elders against these fraudulent onslaughts.
Kaitlin and I dissect the multifaceted nature of scam awareness and prevention, offering a guide to validating unexpected offers and preserving trust without falling victim to manipulation. The conversation traverses the emotional devastation left in the wake of these crimes and the paramount importance of reporting to authorities to aid in prosecution. As we unveil why many victims remain silent, we emphasize the collective responsibility to raise alarm bells and equip society with the tools to counteract these threats. Join us as we empower listeners with knowledge and resources that not only protect the vulnerable but strengthen the fabric of trust within our communities.
Finally, we chart the course for safeguarding against the most sinister of online frauds, navigating the labyrinth of international call center scams that exploit the trusting nature of their victims. Hear firsthand the strategies that can prevent financial disaster and support the healing process for those ensnared by scammers. With an empathetic yet vigilant approach, we offer a lifeline through avenues for reporting fraud and highlight the long-term financial ramifications for the unsuspecting. This episode is a must-listen, equip yourself and your loved ones with the shield of awareness to confront the faceless adversaries lurking in the digital shadows.
Where to Get Educated
Dennis Day
Co-host
00:01
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Welcome everyone to the Getting your Edge how to Right Size your Home and Life podcast. I'm Dennis Day, your co-host, and we've got a special guest today.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
00:13
I'm going to hand it off to my other co-host, judy Gratton, and she's going to tell us Well, I'm extremely excited to have this special guest on today because this is my daughter, Kaitlin Cook, and Kaitlin is joining us today from Davidson, North Carolina, where she just moved with her family and Katie I call her Katie, but other people call her aitlin. I've heard Katie. Could you just tell us briefly a little bit about you?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
00:44
Sure, and thank you both for having me. I'm really excited to finally be here. I am an attorney. I graduated from law school in 2012 and have been practicing law since then. Up until very recently, I was a federal prosecutor who specialized in financial crimes targeting the elderly. As a federal prosecutor, I was also an elder justice coordinator for the office I worked in, so I really learned a lot, both through ongoing education and practical experience on financial crimes targeting the elderly and that is why we have you here today, because I would really like for you to give us a little bit of insight about seniors and fraud.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
01:31
And to start it off, are seniors more susceptible to online and other scams than other people?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
01:39
Yes, for a few reasons, not just because they're seniors, but we are experiencing what a colleague of mine at the AARP describes as the silver wave.
01:50
The baby boomer generation is elder years and so there's just proportionately more people in that to target, and you know, because they have lived longer and often amassed more resources, they are a very lucrative group to target.
02:09
That being said, they are certain ways more susceptible to being compromised by scammers, and the reason being is that studies have shown you know, of course you have changes in the brain that can increase susceptibility to any mild cognitive impairment that can affect decision-making ability to a significant degree. But even absent any sort of cognitive decline or impairment, studies have shown that there are age-related changes in specific regions of the brain that can impact decision-making, including and also predicting values and prospection. All these changes manifest as a diminished gut instinct, diminished gut response, use of untrustworthiness, and so the gist of that, according to the neuroscientists who work with the Department of Justice neuroscience scientists who work with the Department of Justice is that we become more trusting over time and less able to detect and guard against scams, even without any kind of cognitive impairment, such as Alzheimer's, parkinson's or dementia. So e-cognitive decline in older adults is more susceptible to a scam than they would have been 10 years prior to the same scam.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
03:25
What are some examples of some of the scams that are out there right now?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
03:34
I was brushing up on that a minute ago, because it is ever evolving. I remember when the pandemic hit, trying how is this going to be? How are these common scams going to be tailored to this? And try to think the way that criminals would think. But there are some key categories to look for.
03:48
So one of the most common, especially for older adults, is government imposter scams, and those come in essentially two types. The first are benefit scams, so people calling and pretending to be the Social Security Administration or Medicare. So people calling and pretending to be the Social Security Administration or Medicare, they're asking you to provide personal information that gives them, then access to your benefits. Some people use those to bill for medical devices or services that you never actually receive. And then the other common government imposter scam is someone calling to pretending to be a federal law enforcement officer, such as the FBI, the DEA, homeland Security, saying that your information has been somehow linked to a and you have to make a deposit into a government account to investigate, or that they aren't for your arrest and you have to pay money in order not to be arrested. And of course, that is never the case in a legitimate federal investigation. It's the other kind of government imposter scam. There's also scams promising a lucrative financial gain. So you have an unexpected inheritance, a lottery winning sweepstakes, and the gist of those scams is that there's this promise of a big pot of money, but you're going to have to pay the processing, the insurance or some sort of payment upfront to get access to that money. And once you make that payment, there's always another and another and, of course, the promised prize never comes.
05:19
You can have mystery shopper or digital scams, and those are tricky because there are a lot of people today who want to hire digital assistants and people who work remotely and help them do things. That's a scam. The hallmarks of those are your duties will relate almost entirely to opening and closing financial accounts or receiving and resending packages, and that is typically a way that scammers get victims to help them gain access to the proceeds of some other scam. So the scammer is scamming someone over here and they need that person send the money to someone in the United States, because they're probably not going to send it to India or Africa or overseas, and so they will hire a digital assistant or tell someone they're getting paid to be a mystery shopper and they're going to banks to test the bank services and be a mystery shopper at the bank, when in reality what they're doing is receiving fraud proceeds, getting paid out of those proceeds a very small amount and then sending them on to either another money mule in the United States or overseas. Then we have tax support scams.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
06:36
Laundering right. Money isn't that kind of money laundering. So if you get caught in the middle of that, you are breaking the law.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
06:43
Right, you are, but murdering has a level of intent required to prosecute criminally that someone who legitimately believed they were working as a digital assistant or a mystery shopper be executed. It is a common practice in the federal system for agents, in those cases when they've identified someone they think may not know that they're facilitating fraud, to go and knock on the door and serve them a beer. Once you receive a warning letter and you're told the money you're receiving is fraud proceeds. If you continue then you're most certainly committing a crime.
07:18
After the mystery shopper, sort of digital assistant, there's tech support scams your computer saying it's been exposed to a virus, and they either ask you to pay for a service that you never receive hundreds of dollars for antivirus protection or they will ask to access your computer and the key there is. The first thing they'll tell you is to do a run command or run some sort of program that allows them to access the computer remotely and install software. They can steal information from the computer, and so any kind of unsolicited offer of help with your computer should be taken very skeptically. And then a few more categories of scams. As I said, there's a lot out there.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
08:16
I mean, there's stuff I didn't know about. Some of it I knew about.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
08:20
Yeah Well, and the most important thing when talking and thinking about these scams is when you know what to look for. You're likely to fall prey to them, and so if you apply to be a digital assistant and someone says I need you to go open accounts at eight different banks to receive money and test out their money trances, you're going to know if you've heard this podcast or some other discussion that that's probably not legitimate. And so the biggest hope with the department's elder justice initiative that I was a part of as a federal prosecutor, is through education we can help people avoid becoming victims in the first place. Remedies that are available once you are victimized and out thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars are quite limited, candidly, to get the money back if there is any money remaining. So the last categories of scams are what I would call affinity scams, and then home repair scams. Those aren't.
09:26
This is not an exhaustive list, so affinity scams include romance scams. You go online to meet somebody. You know our time or matchcom and you connect with someone and all of your communications are by the phone or by text or some sort of. There's always a reason they can't meet in person and then all of a sudden boom. They have a pressing financial need and once you send them money they continue to have needs and things that they need you to send money. For times there's the promise that you know I have this money, that once I get it, once I get access to it, I'll be back.
10:07
But that's a very common scam and one that increased dramatically during the pandemic as we were all isolated and alone and really creating that human connection I you know, as I've dealt with these various scams, these are some of the most insidious to me because they play on people's fundamental desire to have relationships and community. And they are some of the most insidious to me because they play on people's fundamental desire to have relationships and community and they are some of the hardest to convince people that they are being, because there's the twofold loss of the money and also the relationship that they thought they had developed with someone. So those are, I think, particularly heartbreaking. Those are, I think, particularly heartbreaking. And then you can have some sort of relative in distress scam where you get a phone call out of the blue where grandchild or a niece or a nephew is overseas and in trouble and send money quick, don't tell mom. Those are other common scams that people can fall.
11:08
And then home repair. I had a case like this where someone showed up unsolicited at elderly individuals' homes telling them that their roofs needed extensive repair and the victims weren't able to verify that work had been done on a second story roof. And this person continued to come back and come back, and come back, and it was always one more thing. It was always one more repair, and so people showing up unsolicited to provide services that you didn't ask for, as is, of course, to watch out for.
Dennis Day
Co-host
11:38
Who's doing these? Who's the background on all these scams?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
11:45
Do we have any idea? So a lot of the people on the phone, on the computer they are overseas and people can feel embarrassed when they realize that they've been scammed out of. Something to keep in mind is that these people are professional scammers. They do this as a full-time job and they train to hoodwink people. And so there are people overseas. There can be people domestically. I've had cases where a romance fraud was perpetrated by a US citizen who was down on his luck. By and large, these bigger, more sophisticated scams are originating overseas, but that they will often involve, as I said, people in the United States who are receiving money and potentially more involved than that as well.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
12:34
I personally have received emails from you know very good looking men who seem to be incredibly charming and you're kind of going. Why are you contacting me? You know, and I'm like I'm married, leave me alone, and it takes a while for them to go away. And I know, I know of other people who have been contacted by a. It seems like in one instance it was always the same story, with just a different face and name on it, with a fabulously wonderful background, a widower and an incredible job that took him overseas where he was injured and needed money. And my brother was approached by a woman at least one online and I think he contacted you about that because he has a bank account number so so yeah, and it is very common.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
13:30
These scammers are not. They're. They're just trying to get as much contact with people as possible because who's going to respond or who? I mean? I get friend requests from obvious, to my mind, scammers all the time on my social medias and I am not elderly yet, but they're just in the same way that we get robocalls. You know, I'll answer my phone and someone will speaking in Chinese. That's likely a scam. It's just not one that I'm likely to fall for because I can't understand it. But someone who speaks Chinese and gets that phone call may react to it, whereas I just hang up. And so scammers are not. They are indiscriminate in their efforts to make that initial, and then, once they get someone who responds to them and remains engaged, they double down on that person and there are scam operations. Multiple scammers will be in charge of maintaining continuous streams of communication with one person, because they're sending money and it's lucrative.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
14:41
Person. So if you need to be the same person that is communicating, yes, the one that I remember. I was on Facebook the first time it happened. I didn't know who it was and I was kind of like, well, who is this? How do I know you? And then it became weird.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
14:59
Social media is very common way that these individuals make contact. You might get an unsolicited email Less common now but it does still happen. Mailer, you know, on a lottery or a sweet state scam. They may send out something in the mail saying call this number, you've won, or basically any way that you can be contacted.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
15:22
It's incredibly frightening because you think you're on your guard and they just keep changing the game up here.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
15:30
They may be posting on job boards like indeedcom or LinkedIn and you might respond to what you think is a legitimate advertisement, and then you're for a job and providing all of your information to those people, and so they get that on the front end and then they may get you to open bank accounts or receive packages. I mean another common example, just what you said text messages like how many texts have you gotten saying your UPS, FedEx, postal service package has been delayed, clear to schedule to pick up and you're not expecting?
Judy Gratton
Co-host
16:07
a package. Yeah, your account has been frozen, that's you know, and it's just scary because it comes at you constantly and I freak out that I'm going to hit the wrong button accidentally. And it's that texting is becoming more of an issue than anything.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
16:28
I mean, if you get an unsolicited text message or email that seems like it could be legitimate and you want to check, the best thing that you can do, instead of clicking the link or calling the number in the email, is to go and get the contact information for the post office, ups, your bank from the statement or online from their main website and call and ask the company. Because if you click on the link or call the phone number, email or the text message, you're going to get the scammers. That's how that works. But if you can take a step back and go directly to the source you think you're dealing with, you'll likely be able to determine very quickly that that, whatever the communication is, is not legitimate yeah, are men or women more susceptible to scams?
Judy Gratton
Co-host
17:23
dennis, you haven't really said anything, have you not been?
Dennis Day
Co-host
17:29
approached. Have I not been approached I? Social media is rampant with I. I get the same friend request from an Asian woman in skimpy tennis outfits. Seems like the same person over and over, and over and over and over again. It's nonstop.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
17:55
I'll say, in my experience with the various federal agencies that track these types of scams the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice I haven't ever seen them break down these numbers by order. It typically does focus on age, because you know age, and then cognitive abilities, because those are two risk factors. I mean, what I can tell you is that the FBI, in 2022, which I think is the year we have the most recent statistics for victims and they define elder as anyone over the age of 60. And that's a statutory definition. It's not. It just that's where they draw the line At the federal level over a thousand victims in 2022, who lost three.
18:47
point how many? Oh, over 8,000 victims lost $3.1 billion, and that was an 84% in the losses experienced by that same population group in 2021. The average dollar loss per victim was $35,000 and more than 5,000 victims lost over $100,000. So it really is. Anyone can fall prey to these things because they're not designed you know it's not a romance scam just for lonely women. I mean, be tailored. And you know you may be a woman who's contacted by someone with, you know, a dashing Facebook profile, but that person may be the same individual with the exotic woman contacting Dennis.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
19:37
So you can't go after these people because they're not in this country. I mean our government. How do we stop this?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
19:47
There are ways to get individuals from overseas. It has been done and there are certainly challenges to those cases. The most important thing, whether someone is prosecuted at the state level or is part of a larger federal case, is we can't prosecute what we don't know about. And so getting these crimes reported, getting the victim's evidence, their communications with these individuals, the information that they were given, any notes that they kept you know, verifying the losses that they've suffered, and tracking and responding to live complaints that is absolutely essential. And I think in my own experience in prosecuting these cases, you think like how am I going to get the guy on the phone? How am I going to get the guy in the keyboard? And in a country overseas? You're never going to start there, almost never.
20:43
In my experience, the way that you find that person is you follow the money to them and so you start with the people who are receiving money locally. You get the information that they either because they give it to you voluntarily or they're prosecuted and they cooperate, and then you work through the most readily available people until you find the common connection, and I have personally done that in cases, and so someone being overseas committing these crimes is not a barrier. What I think is there has to be a way to connect or track, so someone who's dealing with someone with a scammer in real time and can provide that information and allow a federal agency or a state law enforcement to assume their role in the conversation and get money that's going to be productive and generate more evidence on which a prosecution could be built. So don't think that just because people are overseas, that it's not worth reporting or that nothing can be done.
Dennis Day
Co-host
21:51
Okay, so is this an underreported crime?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
21:54
Oh, absolutely Absolutely. It is very underreported. It's hard to know exactly how many cases go unreported, but we know that many of them do, unfortunately. You have victims who feel they're in denial, that they've been scammed. They may have loyalty to their scammers, depending on the type of fraud that they have experienced. They may be ashamed, they may be embarrassed, they may have a fear of retaliation, particularly if in some of these instances you know we've been talking more about kind of the broader overseas scams, but you know you can have elder financial abuse by a loved one and so there may be fear of retaliation of a relationship. Many people will blame themselves and they just may not know what to do, and that can be really overwhelming and debilitating.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
22:53
I don't think that enough is being done to broadcast avenues or where to go we had talked about. Hopefully you could provide us with some links of good places to go to find out. Absolutely, is there a place you can go? I mean, you named off a bunch of new scams and I'm going to bet my next week there'll be more, because that's what they do is create new avenues. So is there somewhere to go where you can see? This is just popped up on the radar and watch out for this Because, like you said, that digital thing I was not aware of. I try really hard not to just I don't answer phone numbers I don't recognize. I don't respond to texts normally, but I still feel like I'm too trusting and you're laughing at me. Thank you very much, but I can think of situations where I believed that people were legit, honest, let's just put it that way.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
23:51
Well, and I don't ever want people to think that they can't be trusting. You know, there's this kind of story about a man who pulls a snake out of the fire. The snake bites him. The snake falls back into a fire so he gets a stick to try and get it out. And someone sees it and says why would you help that snake? It bit you. And he's like, well, it's in the snake's nature to bite, but I'm not going to let that change my nature. I think it's good to be informed. It's good to know what to look for. Also good to allow yourself to still believe in the fundamental goodness of humanity. Yeah.
Dennis Day
Co-host
24:33
Even though there are snakes Companies that are creating these identity theft prevention. You pay a monthly subscription and they're supposed to protect you against that identity theft. Is this going?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
24:48
to help against the scams?
25:00
Probably not, because a lot of the scams we've been talking about are ones that are perpetrated through direct contact with the victim, and so you know there are apps and things you can do that will block I don't know and that can help avoid those initial contacts.
25:07
But as far as I'm aware, there isn't a similar way to prevent people from contacting you on social medias. Or maybe an email goes into your spam folder, maybe it doesn't. I mean one that I've been seeing pop up in my own email personally is just invitations by a random person to a Google document or a Google spreadsheet, and I don't know that person. I don't have any reason to be editing a document with them. No, it's spam and I market it. Google isn't going to filter that out as spam in the first instance because that's one of their own books. So I think you know when you're talking about LifeLock or something like that those companies are monitoring the dark web for your information, alerting you to any uses of your credit that in a scam like this, if you're giving out your information, it'll catch the use of it on the back end, but it won't on the front end.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
26:01
I got contacted again that an organization that I belong to had been hacked and my information may have been stolen, and my response anymore was so what? I've been hit so many times? It's out there and there's nothing. It irritates me when people ask me for my social security number, the doctors ask for it, employers ask for it. It's supposed to be the thing, the one thing you're not supposed to be handing out, and everybody seems to want it, and then they lose it for you. Thank you very much, but what about families? What should they be looking out for if they have a senior family that could be susceptible?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
26:44
to this changes in their spending habits. Someone's using their ATM or credit cards that's not them An unexplained disappearance of funds. Someone who had sufficient financial assets suddenly has an increase of debt, despite those adequate financial resources. On the flip side of that, you could see somewhat unexpected influx of money coupled with, like, increased or unusual purchases or transactions. You have a lot of money coming in and a lot of money going out. So would you?
Judy Gratton
Co-host
27:25
recommend that a family member get, because you can't see that if you're not connected to their account.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
27:33
I definitely wouldn't do a power of attorney because that carries its own risk with someone being allowed to conduct financial transactions on your behalf. There's certainly scenarios where those are warranted and needed, but I wouldn't say just giving out power of attorneys is a way to avoid these things. If you have access and you are aware of that, it's a sign to look out for. There are others you know, such as a sudden appearance of an uninvolved or an unknown other. All of a sudden, someone you care about is talking about another person you've never heard of before. A person seems to be playing an outsized role in their life. Very quickly, you know, sudden or uncharacteristic to a person's social practices. Are they isolating more? And then, of course, there's always if they tell you that they have sent money to someone or were given money to someone under circumstances that seem suspicious. That's always something to look out for.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
28:31
But these scammers will send money to not a lot of money, some money to make it look like they're legit.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
28:41
Yes, so that, like with the mystery shopper or the digital assistant, you'll get money and you'll get paid out of that money and it could seem legitimate, and that's what I kind of flagged the. What will you be asked to do with that? It's typically going to involve a bank or the postal service or some sort of international or interstate carrier or money transmitter service. It's not going to the mall and testing out different stores, but they will give you some money, but they will inevitably demand much more. I wanted to touch on a point about statistics and the information you said about there not being a lot out there. Back in 2017, congress actually recognized for data on elder abuse and passed the Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Act that enabled the US Attorney's offices around the country to create well, it enabled and commanded that they create elder justice coordinators, which was one of the positions that I held when I was with the department, and their role is to prosecute these crimes and to do community outreach to help educate the public.
29:53
A lot of federal agencies keep scam alerts, like the Federal Trade Union, has news bulletins you can look at and subscribe to to get updates on the latest scams. The FBI, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Those are just three off the top of my head that I know. Keep these statistics and try to warn the public whenever there's a new scam. The US Attorney's offices sometimes issue warnings. Those are less frequent, I would say, than some of those other sources, but I know our office did that a fair amount when I was there Going to the Federal Trade Commission, the FBI, the Department of Justice has an elder justice initiative, and so they actually have a public-facing website where they post a lot of information about these scams and people can go and learn about them and report them.
30:47
And then you also have entities like AARP, which are very active in this space. They have a fraud watch, and so when I was with the US Attorney's Office, I actually did a teletown hall with AARP. It was a conversation very similar to this, but they offer those where people can come and ask questions and learn from various industry stakeholders like the US Attorney's Office and others and others.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
31:16
You're going to send me links to that so we can post just two different. I was not aware that ARP was involved in that.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
31:24
Oh yes, they're actually a great resource. They have facilitated groups for victims of fraud to connect with one another so that they can process and heal together and feel less alone and having been victimized by these.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
31:43
You know, I have just something that came up, Dennis, that I hadn't thought about was. So what about, first of all, disabled people? I'm sure, if they're online, they have you know, and that's scary. But also, what about teens? Are there scammers? Oh yeah, I'm really I'm very disappointed that our country does not have more regulations and oversight on social media to protect people from things like this.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
32:15
I mean it is a global problem, so it. But yeah, I mean everyone can be a target of a scam. You know you can think you're in an online relationships with someone and, as a teenager, send them photos or videos that you wouldn't want anyone else to see and then, you know, have those shared more broadly or be blackmailed and threatened that they will be shared more broadly unless you're able to send money. That's a scam that targets, you know, that population set maybe a bit more frequently than older adults. But I think we talk a lot about online safety for children, which is an extremely important discussion. I think we do less of that for elder adults, because we think that once you've reached a certain age, you ought to be able to protect yourself, and, by and large, you can. It's just having the information and knowing what to look for.
Dennis Day
Co-host
33:16
If you have been a victim of a scam, are you more likely to be approached by another scammer.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
33:24
Yes, I would. It is very common, especially in these broader, you know, international fraud rings, scammers like they may share information with other scammers. That here's my. Here's my list of people who are giving me money. That can happen. It is certainly the case that once you have fallen for one scam, you may be approached again.
Dennis Day
Co-host
33:49
Who's raking in the dough on all these scams?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
33:53
So the money is is going to the scammers, but there's cuts of it being taken every step of the way. As I said, if you think you're in a relationship with someone, you are probably not going to send money to a call center in India. If you think that you're dealing with a service member who is serving overseas, in the Middle East, and so in order for the person who you're actually talking to to get the money, they have to deal with various individuals along the way. There's a variety of ways in which they do that, but every point at which the money moves, somebody is taking a cut and then finally the money goes back to either the individual who is perpetrating the scam, the group call center cases. The call center owners are pocketing a lot of the scams. I prosecuted. I was involved in a case against a call center owner who profited over $10 million in the few years that we looked at him and you mentioned that getting that money back not really going to happen, not very often back not really going to happen?
35:01
not very often. There can be instances where you recover some money from these scams, but the number of victims when you start trying to apportion it out to try and make everybody whole, no one in my experience gets all of their money back, and when the money goes overseas it becomes very difficult to trace. It depends on the cooperation of the country that you're dealing with and how much information they can or will give you about where the money went or the assets that the person has, and so it is far better not to lose money than to try and get it back. Right, right.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
35:35
Is there anything we haven't covered, Katie, that you think would be important to let people know?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
35:40
So if you think that someone you care about is has been victimized or you're trying to help someone, I think it's really important to know a few things about how the challenges that come with being a victim of these frauds. The first thing is to seek to reduce shame and embarrassment. It's so important for people to know that it is not their fault. Again, as I said earlier, they're dealing with sophisticated actors who are trained to carry out these frauds and do it as a full-time job, and so really understanding that and communicating that to the person in the first instance is so important, and especially when you're dealing with I mean really any of these frauds, but the affidavit frauds you know, acknowledging the importance of loneliness and social isolation as contributing factors pandemic, and when people are alone and are unsure, they may be apt to trust people, and there's nothing wrong with that. I would also say in my experience, the thing that was most helpful for people who needed to move on and empower them to help prevent the scammer from exploiting somebody else.
36:52
I've seen victims who have lost literally everything get a fire back because they felt like they had an important role in the prosecution or they could do something to help somebody else, and that is really key to help them find a way and then also to help them connect back into hope and connection either with you, their community, the AARP's victim discussion group, help them find, you know, not just financially but more broadly. So I think that's you know, something that it can be so easy, when you hear about something happening to someone, to have that judgment of like, oh that could never happen to me, and then either wittingly or unwittingly, coming from that place toward the victim and that's just, it's not helpful, you know it's in that knee jerk reaction If it's a family member or whatever and they've lost thousands of dollars is going to run you or them to be angry, and that matters.
38:01
And it's not going to encourage them to give you more information about what happened. So meeting people where they're at is really important, establishing that trust and respect and, if the person is still being scammed, just engaging with them and reflecting back what you hear. So what you're telling me is he's in the military, but the military's not paying him. That seems weird, don't you think that would be reported on? You can ask questions to help people draw their own conclusions, instead of telling them what you think they should know. If there is a relationship or something going on and you're aware of a financial aspect to it, you can express concern about that and suggest, maybe, that they pause sending money and gauge the response that they get back. You can offer to help them file a police report and if they can't do that, you can say well, give me the information and I'll file the report.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
39:00
So if you start at the local police station to begin with, will?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
39:04
they be helpful. You know that varies depending on who you get, but there are. You can report to the local police. You can also report to the FBI. They have an Internet Crime Complaint Center, which is IC3.gov. That really deals with crimes that begin or are perpetrated over the internet. The Federal Trade Commission has a consumer sentinel network where you can report any kind of fraud or consumer abuse. If you're specifically dealing with an older adult who meets that 60 years of age or older, the Department of Justice actually established a national elder fraud hotline that is open every day from 10 am to pm Eastern Standard Time. They have people who speak English and Spanish and other languages and when you call you get a dedicated case manager who helps you navigate the reporting process and follows up with you. So it's not just like kind of a black hole where you put that information in and then never hear back, and so that is. The phone number is 1-833-FRAUD-11, which is 1-833-372-8311, which is 1-833-372-8311, which I'll give you, of course, for the show notes.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
40:30
Thank you, I was not aware of that either. You've given us lots of information here that hopefully will help people avoid ending up in that situation, but if they have been in that situation, to understand that it is not a flaw in them. It, you know, said these people are professionals at what they do. Sad, but true.
Dennis Day
Co-host
40:46
Is there scam insurance?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
40:51
I'm not aware of scam insurance and I will say this One thing that is particularly heartbreaking when dealing with victims who have lost a lot of money. Some people will have pulled money out of their retirement before they were able to. There is no fraud victim exception to the taxes that are assessed on that money, and so victims can lose their retirement savings and then have to pay taxes on those losses. I've had many, many victims ask me you know well, will the IRS and in cases that I have worked with IRS agents like, will the IRS waive the tax on this? And unfortunately that's not a remedy available in the criminal justice system and so hopefully that will change one day. But that's just something else to be aware of before you start pulling money out.
41:46
So you refer to that as fraud victim tax what Anyone who pulls money of a retirement account that was paid in pre-tax. There are tax penalties to taking that money early. You have to pay the taxes on it that you didn't pay when it was put into the retirement account. And so if you are a fraud victim and you want to send to a fraudster because you believe they're legitimately doing something for you or have a legitimate need, and you pull that money out of that account thinking that you're going to get paid back, not only will you likely be out that money, but the next tax season you're probably going to have to pay taxes on it.
Dennis Day
Co-host
42:26
Wow, Might be a large, large bill.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
42:30
Yes, it can be for some people, which, as I said, is that that's an aspect of these crimes that I find particularly heartbreaking.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
42:38
Well, maybe we need to reach out to our congressmen and senators and just pass a bill. I don't know if they will.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
42:47
And I will say there are a lot of resources out there. I think you know, starting with your state attorney general can sometimes be really useful. I know when I lived in Virginia, the Virginia Attorney General's Office actually offered something called an identity theft passport. So if someone had used your identity unlawfully and you'd filed a police report and could prove that, the Attorney General's Office would give you paperwork that you could then use to say, go to your credit bureaus and get your accounts that you didn't open and charge off taken off your credit report and things like that. And so there are a lot of resources out there. It's just kind of knowing where to look. I think everyone realized what a problem these scams have become and how much help people need when they become involved in them, and so everybody's trying to do something. But then when everybody's doing something, who do you go to that?
Judy Gratton
Co-host
43:45
800 number sounds like a really good place to start Absolutely, because it can then lead you to different avenues that will be helpful, and I was really shocked to hear ARP had anything to do with that. That's really great to know too.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
44:00
So it's people who are trained in working with crime victims and helping crime victims and then they are going to be up to date on reporting and what kind of scams are popular and they will help victims navigate the reporting process. And you know, having that dedicated case manager I've never seen anything like it in the federal level. I think it's wonderful.
Dennis Day
Co-host
44:39
Is most of the scams and fraud here occurring on digitally online?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
44:46
I would say that is the vast majority are because we increasingly are a digital society. But I mentioned the home repair scams because that when you are thinking only that you need to guard against scams on the computer and someone shows up at your door, you may not pause to think wait a minute, why are they here? Is this legitimate and actually need the services that they're offering? And in those contexts, I always just recommend just get a second opinion, have someone else come out and let you know if you need that work done, get two quotes so that you can compare them and then, in all likelihood, you either don't work or it's not as extensive as what's been relayed to you and you can avoid having to deal with the scammer at all.
45:32
Oh, I was just going to say, in addition to gathering information and promoting reporting, at least on the federal level, there's been a lot done by the United States Sentencing Commission and Congress to try and increase the penalties for people who target older adults, and that's something that people may not be aware of. But there's vulnerable victim sentence enhancements and abuse of position of trust and things like that that can apply in a wide variety of cases but are typically applicable in elder financial crimes, and there's also something called the Scams Act, which is Senior Citizens Against Marketing Scams Act of 1994. So that was one that can increase the penalties of a federal offense by 10 years if a crime victimized 10 or more persons over the age of 55 or targeted people over the age of 55 using some sort of telemarketing or email marketing scam. We're fighting the good fight and there are tools available, but the most important tools are those that allow people to empower themselves and avoid becoming victims in the first place.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
46:42
I guess I did have one question, katie, and that is are these crimes most often federal crimes than not state crimes, because they originate somewhere out of the country or out of the state you're in, or something?
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
46:56
like that they can be prosecuted. I mean depending on the fraud scam and what's at play. If you have someone who is purporting to do home repair or is like an in-home health aide who's using your credit cards, those are things that could be prosecuted locally quite easily. These broader frauds with individuals overseas in my experience those tend to work best in federal and state partnerships. But federal have to know about them and so you know we have those resources. But also you know your local law enforcement may be involved in federal task forces. Your bank may be able to help. There's just a lot of ways to get that information out there.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
47:36
Just thrilled. Thank you so much for spending time in your busy day with us, and I think there's such valuable information for us to be able to pass on to our listeners Happy to do it and I appreciate the opportunity and hope that people come away informed and able to protect themselves and those they love against these scammers.
Dennis Day
Co-host
47:59
Well, how about a shameless plug for your podcast? Let's talk about that briefly.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
48:05
Sure, yeah. So, as I said, I'm a former federal prosecutor. I left that position earlier this year and one of the things that I've been doing with my time in the interim is a podcast with my mom, your co-host, judy Gratton. It is called Ascending Us and we in our first season we were weekly. We need to get season two going, but every week we sit down and we discuss a spiritual topic openly and honestly with each other, the goal of promoting intergenerational healing. We both have done a lot of spiritual work individually over the last 20 years and the goal of the podcast is really to learn and grow from each other, because we believe that we will heal more completely together than we would apart, and so we really do focus on intergenerational healing and spiritual growth, and we would love for any of your listeners who find that appealing to check it out.
Dennis Day
Co-host
49:00
Ascending Us.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
49:02
Ascending Us.
Dennis Day
Co-host
49:02
Ascending Us, yep, apple Podcasts and other.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
49:05
Available wherever you get your podcasts and also on YouTube as a non-video podcast.
Dennis Day
Co-host
49:12
Well, thank you so much again. We hope that this will help you or someone you love avoid being scammed. And that's it for Getting your Edge how to Right Size your Home and Life podcast. If you have any further questions about this topic or any other topic, reach out to us at wwwedgegroupteamcom and that's it.
Judy Gratton
Co-host
49:35
Bye-bye everyone Bye-bye, thank you.
Kaitlin Cooke
Guest
49:39
Thanks.
Dennis Day
Co-host
49:40
Thanks, Katie.
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