Phone scammers scam financial journalist out of $50,000

Fraudsters use shock calls to steal millions. It's not just the elderly who fall victim to their psychological tricks. According to studies, it affects Gen Z or Gen X more often than people over the age of 60.

New York financial columnist Charlotte Cowles describes how quickly one can lose reason in her article “cut”. She describes giving a stranger $50,000 in a shoebox.

Cowles was working from home when she got the call. An Amazon customer service representative, Krista, wanted to investigate unusual account activity and asked if she had purchased $8,000 in Apple devices using her business account.

Both agreed that it must be a case of identity theft, since Cowles said he knew nothing about it and didn't have a business account. Christa said Amazon has a big problem with this, which is why Coles should talk to the U.S. Consumer Protection Agency about it.

The employee referred her to authorities. Cowles suspected nothing wrong; The person from the agency knows her address, date of birth and social security number. That's why she believed him when he told her he had 22 bank accounts, four properties and nine cars registered in her name.

He has a car at the Mexican border with drugs and bank statements in his name. She transferred three million dollars to other countries. An investigation into money laundering and drug trafficking is currently underway.

He wanted to know if she had ever used public Wi-Fi. When she mentioned public airport Wi-Fi, she said a lot of identity theft started. The person on the phone told them not to talk to anyone about the incident, making everyone suspicious and their communications being monitored.

He wanted to help save his money. It was to be sent back to the CIA, the US foreign intelligence service. Cowles writes that he was now dubious, but since no one asked him for money, he accepted it.

Nevertheless, he requested evidence from a CIA agent named Michael Sarano. He hung up on her and asked her to look up the FBI number. He called her again using that number. Such numbers cannot be handled, he said. However, that is not true; Police warns against number spoofing Cowles said he wanted to speak to a lawyer, to which Sarano said he could no longer help him.

The man pressed him and said that it was important now to act quickly. She hangs herself and puts herself and her family in danger. “But do you really want to take that risk with a small child?” During a money laundering investigation, the CIA must freeze its assets for up to two years. So she takes the money and gives it to one of his colleagues. In return, she receives a check with clean cash.

She withdrew $50,000 from the bank. The attentive cashier handed her a form about the attempted fraud. Cowles put the money in the shoebox as instructed. He then handed it over to an undercover agent who allegedly arrived at his house in an SUV.

After a while, she heard nothing and realized she had fallen into a trap. “It is impossible to explain why I have adopted this logic,” writes Cowles. But after five hours on the phone she was exhausted. “Someone waged a psychological war against me and I lost.”