Judge warns seniors about fraud, scams
Whitpain District Judge Robert Sobeck speaks to local retirement communities
LOWER GWYNEDD >> It’s a fraud case District Judge Robert Sobeck won’t ever forget: A wealthy 91-yearold victim who had been seeking companionship met someone online, and within fairly short order had been bilked out of a new Mercedes and a lot of cash. The victim finally went to the police, an arrest was made, and a preliminary hearing was held in Sobeck’s Whitpain courtroom.
“After it was over and I held all the charges for
trial, and the defendant was being led out in handcuffs, the victim actually looked at the defendant and said, ‘Don’t you still love me?’” Sobeck recalled. “In that case, this victim still didn’t really understand what was happening. Someone’s preying on their heart, and it really is damaging to their emotions when they find out they’ve been scammed. And they’re also out money.”
It’s with that incident and many others in mind that Sobeck has been making the rounds at area retirement communities to educate and warn elderly residents about the numerous frauds and scams — particularly Internet- and phonebased schemes — that target older people with alarming regularity.
At Gwynedd Estates on Monday, one of the first things Sobeck did in front of the assembled group was to demonstrate that even he has been a recent target. Holding up a printed copy of an e-mail he’d received, the judge explained that it was purportedly from Chase Financial, where he does have an account, and it included a link that he was urged to click. “It had the Chase logo, it looked completely legitimate, and what they do is they give you a contact website, and once you click that, a lot of things can happen — you can be hacked, they can get your identity, you name it.”
For younger and more tech-savvy people, this kind of thing might seem like a no-brainer. But elderly people continue to be targeted, and continue to fall for scams to the tune of many millions of dollars a year, because “they’re computer-challenged, much like myself, and with the technology getting so far ahead of what that generation is used to, sometimes we’re incapable of deciding, ‘Is this real or not real?’” Sobeck said.
Proof of the problem in Sobeck’s district is the increasing volume of identity theft, forgery, access device fraud and other related crimes at his court. “I would say 40- to 50-percent of the cases coming through now are some type of identity theft or fraud using electronics, credit cards, your personal information, all of that, and most are targeting the elderly,” Sobeck
said. “I get the paperwork in here and I can see the age of the victims, so that’s why I’m trying to focus my attention on them, to show them how to navigate their way through these situations.”
Sobeck went through several of the more prevalent scams and frauds with Gwynedd Estate residents, including the IRS phone scam and a Craigslist-based scam that’s been around for quite some time but continues to claim victims. The way the latter one often works, he explained, is that a person might post something such as a sofa for sale for $400, and within a day or two the target will get an e-mail from someone in California saying they really want to buy the sofa but they’re out of the country and will have to pick it up at a future date, so they’ll send the victim $450 to hold it. Then, a money order will turn up in the mail, and the target will put it in the bank. But a day or two later, the scammer will send another e-mail saying they can’t get the sofa after all, and ask the target to mail a personal check back to them for $400 — but keep the extra $50 “for their troubles.” Many times, the target will believe that’s fair and do just that.
“But what the scammer knows and the target does not is that it can take as long as 12 days for a money
order to clear at the bank, while the check only takes a day or two — the money order was a fake but your check was good, and now you’re out 400 bucks,” Sobeck said as people gasped.
More heads shook in disgust as Sobeck brought up dating fraud and warned residents to be extremely wary when requests for money enter the equation.
“You’re getting someone who’s going on these dating sites for single, elderly people and they’re preying on them and playing right into their desires for a companion,” Sobeck had explained prior to the presentation. “(The perpetrator) creates a fictitious character who looks like they’d be great for the part, they befriend someone and the relationship goes on and on, all via the Internet. They never meet, and the scammer sends phony photos, you know, ‘This is me and my family in Ireland but I can’t come over there to see you because I can’t afford it, can you send me a few dollars?’ Or, ‘I’m having financial trouble and I can’t pay my bill….’ It starts off small, and if the elderly person bites, it escalates from there.”
And naturally, Sobeck says, once someone is victimized in such a way, they’re typically too embarrassed to report it to
police. “That’s a major part of why I’m doing this,” the judge said. “There’s no way of knowing how many of these cases are out there because it’s so underreported. Nobody likes to be made a fool out of and have others know about it.”
“If I can reach out and educate the elderly, make
them aware that there’s things going on out there and that there’s wolves constantly prowling, and that they shouldn’t take anything for granted and ask someone else to take a look at something that even seems legit before they do anything, that’s really the best and only way to fight this stuff,” the
judge said.
“Now I’m kinda scared,” one elderly woman laughed nervously after Sobeck’s presentation.
“I know — it’s a shame, because we all want to trust people,” Sobeck lamented. “But unfortunately, that’s the world we live in now, and better safe than sorry.”