When will these people ever learn?

Maccapacca said:
Honestly I have restricted and monitor my kids online usage now I need to do the same for my father :p
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With how wealthy a lot of people in their 50s+ are, I can see scams like these becoming a lot more common.

Whilst you may have said it in jest, I think we all need to take some responsibility for our parents/grandparents financial wellbeing to ensure they don't fall victim to one of these scams.

My two top tips to my elderly relatives are 1) no financial institution will ever ask you to move money, if they needed to move your money they could do it without any intervention by the account holder. 2) If anyone ever phones and says we've detected a virus on your computer, or we've noticed your computer running slow, either say you don't have access to a computer, or tell them that your son/grandson/nephew etc will have a look at it and thank them for letting you know before putting the phone down.
 
Semple said:
My two top tips to my elderly relatives are 1) no financial institution will ever ask you to move money, if they needed to move your money they could do it without any intervention by the account holder. 2) If anyone ever phones and says we've detected a virus on your computer, or we've noticed your computer running slow, either say you don't have access to a computer, or tell them that your son/grandson/nephew etc will have a look at it and thank them for letting you know before putting the phone down.
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Put the phone straight down on all cold calls without saying a word. Easier to remember for most....or scream at the top of your lungs like I do :)

In regards to the OP it's obviously not great to find out that you've been suckered in by someone who you thought were going to be the love of your life, but dropping every single safeguard just to get it done looks like something you'd expect from someone with Alzheimers. Add to this that instead of deciding to keep schtum she thought she'd go public and add to the already massive list of people, going back to the inception of the internet, who are supposedly trying to help others by telling their story about being scammed. In reality all she's likely done is open the flood gates for more unscrupulous people getting in contact with her to offer her more dodgy advice, requests for money and offers of friendship. She needs help but I doubt she'll get it.
 
Mr Blonde said:
Put the phone straight down on all cold calls without saying a word.
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The problem with that is the sophisticated scams these days involve spoofing real numbers, so it'll likely pop up with your banks phone number and make it all the more believable to their next victim.
 
Semple said:
The problem with that is the sophisticated scams these days involve spoofing real numbers, so it'll likely pop up with your banks phone number and make it all the more believable to their next victim.
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True, but a lot of scams aren't sophisticated so it's still a useful thing to do. It's sort of like locking your bike to something - it won't stop a skilled or determined thief but it will stop a non-trivial proportion of thieves.

I'd like to think that I wouldn't fall for a scam, but I suspect that the reality is that it would only be a matter of how skilled the scammer is. I doubt if anyone is completely immune to scamming.
 
dLockers said:
It is a sad state of affairs when someone vulnerable and lonely falls for a sophisticated romance scam. It is even more sad when someone who can't keep their UberEats account secure feels the need to create a thread calling the victim dumb.
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tenor.gif
 
dLockers said:
It is a sad state of affairs when someone vulnerable and lonely falls for a sophisticated romance scam. It is even more sad when someone who can't keep their UberEats account secure feels the need to create a thread calling the victim dumb.
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If people are suggesting that having an account hacked (even if it's due to casual security practices) is worse than literally giving away large sums of money to a random who gives you a sob story then I'm afraid you're just wrong. Top bants though of course :p
 
R.P.L said:
If people are suggesting that having an account hacked (even if it's due to casual security practices) is worse than literally giving away large sums of money to a random who gives you a sob story then I'm afraid you're just wrong. Top bants though of course :p
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No, just that it's a bit hypocritical to be posting 'lol look at this idiot' threads about someone getting scammed, when it took several weeks of being told 'you need to sort your security out' in their own thread about getting several of their accounts compromised routinely for weeks, before finally running a virus scan after about a month and realising the PC was absolutely riddled with dodgy malware.
 
dLockers said:
It is a sad state of affairs when someone vulnerable and lonely falls for a sophisticated romance scam. It is even more sad when someone who can't keep their UberEats account secure feels the need to create a thread calling the victim dumb.
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:cry::cry::cry:
 
the fella a couple of doors down from me lost his wife a few years ago, was a really hard time for him and was heart breaking to see him in so much pain and not be able to help. Sooooo a couple months ago i bump into him he tells me he's been chatting to someone on line . 2weeks after that he tells me he's got a girl friend..... the other day he asks if i can look after his house in a months time as his booked his ticket to go to Uganda to meet said girl friend...... oh i say. are you going to meet her family? He tells me no she's from America... shes training to be a surgeon in Uganda... then she'll be going back to America and hopefully I'll eventually move to America with her.???? Right so this guy is 55 years old, over weight , scruffy he drinks more than he should probably and doesn't really look after himself very well and generally people round here worry about him as he comes across as child like. Maybe its guenue but sounds suspicious to me. That said this is probably the most anybody has seen him smile in 6 or 7 years any thoughts?
 
Dave 2323 said:
the fella a couple of doors down from me lost his wife a few years ago, was a really hard time for him and was heart breaking to see him in so much pain and not be able to help. Sooooo a couple months ago i bump into him he tells me he's been chatting to someone on line . 2weeks after that he tells me he's got a girl friend..... the other day he asks if i can look after his house in a months time as his booked his ticket to go to Uganda to meet said girl friend...... oh i say. are you going to meet her family? He tells me no she's from America... shes training to be a surgeon in Uganda... then she'll be going back to America and hopefully I'll eventually move to America with her.???? Right so this guy is 55 years old, over weight , scruffy he drinks more than he should probably and doesn't really look after himself very well and generally people round here worry about him as he comes across as child like. Maybe its guenue but sounds suspicious to me. That said this is probably the most anybody has seen him smile in 6 or 7 years any thoughts?
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If he makes it back, he’ll be a kidney lighter.
 
I know it's an old thread but going back about 10 years ago I was working in an office full of women and one of them got talking about her online date.
She then said that he had asked her to send £300 and I just sat upright.
I waited for her to go the toilet and then told her colleagues to tell her to immediately delete him because he was scamming her.
None of them would have it but I was quite forceful and a couple of days later I was thanked.
I can't believe that after all these years the same scam is still happening.
 
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