Retiree warns of scam
A 78-year-old retiree who nearly lost her life savings to a sophisticated phone hoax is touring rest homes to warn others of the dangers of giving personal details over the telephone.
The growing numbers of elderly people being targeted by international scammers has led to phone companies joining forces to fight the scourge.
Margaret Taylor’s troubles began when she was called by a man who claimed to work for internet service provider Slingshot. He said her account had been hacked and he needed immediate access to her computer to stop it.
‘‘Brian’’ knew her name, her Palmerston North address, and even had her internet account number.
‘‘That’s what’s so scary. At no time did I feel this was a hoax. It sounded so real,’’ she said.
The scammer managed to steal $5000 before she caught on.
Taylor’s scammer kept her on the hook for hours, using a key-logger and his remote access to snatch all her passwords and account details he said needed to be changed to protect them from the fictitious Wellington hacker.
Taylor said it only stopped when her flatmate Leanne Warr came home.
Warr, an experienced coder who had worked with computers for 30 years, immediately recognised what was happening. She knew they had to act fast to stop the retiree from losing everything.
Warr said her friend didn’t believe her at first.
‘Brian’ seemed too nice, competent and concerned – he’d spent the past three hours intermixing pleasant conversation about Taylor’s knitting and her day, with dire warnings about the urgent need to foil the false hack.
‘‘That’s the psychology they use to make it work.
‘‘They set the alarm bells ringing in your head, so you don’t think about it, you just do what they ask.’’
Warr convinced her to shut down the computer, and check her bank balance – ‘‘she just went white with shock’’. All $3000 of her savings were gone and her credit card had been maxed out with a $2000 cash advance.
The pair quickly got in touch with her bank, ISP and the police to find out what could be done – and all the while, ‘‘Brian’’ kept calling, in an attempt to convince them he was legit, Taylor said.
Taylor said her bank could make her no promises even though the theft had been discovered quickly.
‘‘The bank told me 80 per cent of the time, the money never comes back.‘‘
She was faced with having to pay back the credit card at $70 a month, with a 40 per cent per year interest rate – she was worried she wouldn’t be able to afford to eat properly, that the stress would ruin her health.
‘‘Three days later I checked my account, pretty much for fun because I didn’t think it was ever coming back, and there it all was. The bank got it back, I was so fortunate.’’
Taylor said she never wanted anyone else to go through that, and has started telling her story at rest homes and social clubs, to warn seniors of the tell-tale signs.
The Telecommunications Forum is set to launch an agreement where the big telecommunications companies work together to identify, trace and block scam numbers.