By Wesley Harris
The ways to separate innocent victims from their money seem to never cease. Back in my early law enforcement days, the typical “flim-flam” or scam involved face-to-face contact.
Often it went like this: An older citizen moving slowly through a grocery store would be targeted by the shysters who usually worked in pairs. There were a host of strategies. They might pretend to find a knotted handkerchief of cash lying at the older individual’s feet. Although it sounds rather ridiculous, they talked the victim into putting up some “good faith” money in order to share the discovered cash. The scammers would accompany the victim to the bank to withdraw money and place it in a bag and by a sleight of hand, switch the bag and the handkerchief to ones containing nothing but scraps of newspaper.
As a young officer, I found it difficult to understand why people would fall for this. But many did, most of them over the age of 70 who the bad guys confused and rushed into decisions.
In the paving scam, a targeted senior citizen living alone would be approached by a “paving crew” that had enough material left to complete another job at a heavy discount. Instead of a legitimate paving job, the fraudsters would spray a little liquid tar on the existing driveway and then demand money.
In another scheme, thieves would visit a senior citizen and claim to be bank examiners investigating a crooked teller. They would ask the victim to cooperate by withdrawing money to test the teller. After the withdrawal, the thieves would switch the money, often without the victim noticing until later.
Often victims refused to report these crimes out of embarrassment.
Today, scamming the innocent is more likely to involve technology. Instead of face-to-face contact with their victims, thieves hide behind a keyboard, often working from halfway around the world. That usually places the criminals out of reach of law enforcement.
I’ve been victimized myself several times despite all my efforts to prevent it. In my case, it has involved my bank debit card. On two occasions, purchases have been made with my card without my knowledge, although the card never left my possession. Those purchases occurred in states I had not visited.
There’s also been several attempted purchases from my bank account. Fortunately, my bank saw the transactions as suspicious and sent me text messages asking to verify them. A few times the transactions involved websites I used for the first time and I’m glad the bank verified them. But in several cases, they were fraudulent, and the bank stopped them before my money was withdrawn.
In an unusual case, I received a text from a local store that has online grocery ordering. The text announced my grocery delivery had arrived at my house, but I had not submitted an order. I found nearly $400 worth of merchandise at my door. The store couldn’t explain it and wasn’t much help in getting to the truth. I immediately contacted my bank about the fraudulent transaction.
The bank said return the merchandise, but the store could not accept it back. This issue took a little more paperwork than the previous scams but eventually the bank reimbursed my account.
The most popular scam these days uses text messages which are sent out to millions of phone numbers and email addresses acquired from a variety of sources, either found openly on the web or by data breaches. Typically, these texts ask if you made a certain financial transaction and request you verify it by clicking on a link. Or state you are the subject of an arrest warrant for missing court or failure to pay a traffic toll charge.
Again, the strategy is to get you to click on a link which asks you to provide your financial information or provide other identifiers or give the scammers access to your device.
If you look at these messages carefully, there’s usually hints they are not legitimate. One is the phone number or email address of the originator. If it’s from a phone number, it often has an international area code showing that it’s from a foreign country, not from your local bank. Or it’s from a wonky email address that seems nothing like an address your bank or a government agency would use.
Sometimes victims have fallen for these scam texts even though the name of the bank mentioned is not one that they patronize.
A recent text received by many Louisiana residents purported to be from the “Department of Vehicles (DMV)” reporting the receiver had unpaid citations. It required immediate payment to avoid suspension of the driver’s license and vehicle registration.
Although the average citizen might not recognize them, several telltale signs marked it as phony. Louisiana does not have a “Department of Vehicles” or a “DMV.” In Louisiana, it is the “Office of Motor Vehicles (OMV) under the Department of Public Safety. The text mentions a “New South Louisiana Administrative Code.” No such law exists. The originator’s email ends “@lsxwaxe.top,” a rather suspicious address for a state agency.
Talk to your financial institution about what protections are available to protect your money. Be suspicious of any effort to remotely acquire your personal or bank information. Government agencies do not use text messages to communicate with individuals. Some banks do, but you usually have to sign up for such services.
The bogus texts below are typical of ones received by Louisiana residents recently:
This text was received by someone who did not have an account with Centric. Zelle is a service that allows individuals to send and receive money directly between their bank accounts. The dollar amount supposedly transferred is enough to alarm the receiver.
The wonky email address, incorrect identification of the agency, and mention of a nonexistent law marks this text as bogus.
This text also misidentifies the Office of Motor Vehicles (OMV). The OMW does not keep records of citizen phone numbers and does not use text messages to collect fees.
Attempts to collect highway tolls are some of the newest scams by text. The text from Toronto, Canada includes an odd link to follow.
