Do the Scammed Deserve Any Blame for Being Scammed?

The article A former White House scientist was scammed out of $655,000: then came the IRS describes a 73-year-old woman, Frances Sharples, who has a PhD and worked in government for four decades, including in the White House. The scam went like this.Stumped while playing an online word game called Spelling Bee, she went to other websites for help when her computer froze and the screen filled with a large red warning box telling her that her personal and financial information had been compromised and to call Microsoft at a provided 800 number, which she did:I think it must have been around 25 years ago when I first encountered a variant of this, and several other times since. Even way back then I didn't believe it. Where has this person been? It's very annoying when it happens. It's been a long while since it last happened to me, but I think it was actually just a browser window set to full-screen where they'd disabled keystrokes or maybe trapped them using Javascript.A person answered the phone and identified himself as Peter Williams of Microsoft. A person answered the phone? Really? People don't answer phones anymore. Voice menu systems answer phones, especially at a huge company like Microsoft. How could she not be suspicious right away?Williams told her that her computer and bank account had been compromised and that she needed to take immediate action. There had been three attempted withdrawals on her account, and he gave her the amounts. Following his instructions she installed software that gave him control of her computer.I'm already horrified in disbelief. How could she give him control of her computer without verifying that he was legitimate? How could she not ask how he, an employee of Microsoft, could know about attempts to break into her bank account? Why did she not check her bank accounts online and make sure everything was okay? Why did she not call her bank? It gets worse.He then told her to call the customer service number on the back of her bank card, which she says she did. She claims the call must have been intercepted and rerouted, but that can't be true, and the article says it's unclear how that happened. It added that a forwarding number she didn't recognize had been added to her phone account, but forwarding is for incoming calls, not outgoing.I don't think it's possible the call was intercepted. I think she must misremember what she actually did. The scammer was probably intentionally confusing, telling her more than one thing, including to call the number on the back of her card, but he must have said other things, too, and she instead called some other number. What number she called must be in her phone records, but the article doesn't mention that.She continued to behave like the perfect patsy, never applying an ounce of skeptical thinking. She never told a friend or family member what was happening, or anyone who might have urged her to question what was happening.Her credit union is the Department of Commerce Federal Credit Union (henceforth DoCFCU). The man she reached, who said his name was Samuel Billings, claimed to work for their anti-fraud unit. He said her bank account was under attack and that there had been three attempted withdrawals, and he named the same amounts as Williams. Again, she made no attempt to verify the veracity of the claim.Billings said she would have to move the money somewhere safe, a protected investment account that he opened for her at Binance.US, a cryptocurrency company. She never asked why she couldn't just change her password, something anyone would think of. Probably she was unaware of two stage authentication, but she also didn't ask why they couldn't simply open a new account at DoCFCU. She didn't ask why he, Billings, an employee of DoCFCU, was asking her to move her money to away from DoCFCU and to another institution. If he opened the account at Binance.US, didn't that mean he knew all the information for the account, making the account insecure? Billings provided her the password for the account. Why didn't Sharples change it immediately?They first targeted her $25,000 savings account. For the next two weeks Williams and Billings kept Sharples on the phone from 7 AM until bedtime, claiming they were making her computer safe. Why did she never tell anyone this was happening? Why was she unaware how highly unusual this was?Finally a document appeared on her screen with a list of account names and numbers. She was told to print it out and go to her credit union, which she did. If anyone questioned her she should say she was moving the money to her investment account. She provided the DoCFCU clerk with the printout indicating that the $25,000 should be transferred to the Binance.US account, which it was.Williams and Billings had rigged Sharples computer so that she didn't receive the emails from Binance telling her that the money she had just deposited was being transferred out of the account. Within 26 minutes the money was gone.“There should be no shame in being the victim of this, because this is organized crime,” says Amy Hogan-Burney, Microsoft's general manager for cybersecurity policy and protection. I don't agree. Sharples already had multiple signs that something was amiss.But that's not the end of it. The scammers next targeted her $630,000 retirement account, which was held by DoCFCU but managed by TIAA, which stands for Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America. They manage retirement accounts and they're legitimate.The scammers told Sharples to request that the $630,000 in the retirement account be transferred to her account at DoCFCU. Why did she not ask why they were transferring money from her retirement account into an account at DoCFCU that they claimed had been compromised?The scammers also told Sharples what to say if she was asked about the transfer, something else she didn't question. When she was contacted by a TIAA senior fraud investigator who asked her if someone was telling her to do this she followed the instructions from Williams and Billings and said that she'd decided to invest her money differently. TIAA made the necessary withholding for taxes for monies withdrawn from a retirement account, then transferred the remaining amount to her account at DoCFCU.She continued following the instructions from Williams and Billings, going to DoCFCU and asking for the $630,000 to be transferred to her account at Binance.US. Two hours after the transfer to Binance.US it was gone.The article says "she still didn't have access to the funds", but what must have actually happened is that she noticed the account balance was zero and began asking about it, but Billings was pushing her to transfer her remaining asset, another retirement account with a balance of about $1 million.The light bulb finally went on. She called the fraud investigator at TIAA who had contacted her earlier about the retirement fund transfer, and he said she was likely the victim of fraud. She called Williams and expressed a loss of confidence, and he transferred her to a "supervisor" who subjected her to an expletive-filled rant.I'm actually very familiar with that last part. Sometimes I'll accept scam calls if I feel I could use a break. When they discover I've been stringing them along (my record is 18 minutes) then I am subjected to the requisite "expletive-filled rant." I figure the time they spend trying to scam me is time they can't spend trying to scam someone more vulnerable, like Ms. Sharples here. I have to give them credit - they're pretty sharp. They're very good at detecting insincere stupidity.And that's why I find Ms. Sharples beyond belief. In order for them not to have given up on her very early on she would have had to just roll over time and again, because the slightest skepticism sets them off.When she looks back on what she did she can't believe it. Major alarm bells should have been going off in her head, but apparently there were none. I'm sorry this happened to her, but I find her behavior inexplicably stupid. I guess she does too now.Oh, and of course the IRS is not letting her off the hook for the taxes, about $100,000. She was able to deduct the loss under an IRS procedure for victims of fraud, saving her at least a little.The loss of all that money is very sad. $1.65 million is more than enough for a single person to retire on comfortably for the rest of their life. $1 million is okay, but it's more iffy.--Percy

I could write a book on this. In fact I've written a chapter in a book on this.But it's late here and I'm overwhelmed with inertia. So I'll make three quick points.1. Never, ever blame the victim of a crime; it reduces the culpability of the criminal and victimises the victim a second time.2. Online fraud and attempted fraud is consequence free. There is almost no possibility of tracking the culprits and even less possibility of finding, arresting, convicting them and recovering the money.Criminology theory predicts that without deterrence, crime will expand indefinitely. Our society is allowing the exponential growth of online fraud. Fraud is now half of all crime in the UK and growing rapidly. It's our fault, not the victim's - however crazy their actions might seem.3. The fraud was only possible because the banking system allows it. It should not be possible for those transactions to occur so easily and so terminally. Follow the money - make the banks responsible for fraudulent transfers and they will introduce controls that make such transfers impossible or recoverable.

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He then told her to call the customer service number on the back of her bank card, which she says she did. She claims the call must have been intercepted and rerouted, but that can't be true, and the article says it's unclear how that happened. It added that a forwarding number she didn't recognize had been added to her phone account, but forwarding is for incoming calls, not outgoing.

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I can guess here. There’s a trick where the scammer pretends to hang up but stays on the line. To be safe, use a different phone to contact the bank. (That’s what I did, when I got a fake call telling me that my bank account had been compromised).

Yeah, I know, I quoted the Microsoft security person from the article saying the same thing, and you hear this all the time.But we have a shining example of the blamable right here at EvC. They believe whatever a YouTube video tells them, despite that we've been telling them for years they're being scammed. They've had a literal peanut gallery full of people yelling, "Don't do it," and explaining why, but they ignore all that and do it anyway. I'd say whatever happens to them is their own fault.My sister's being scammed at this very moment and there's nothing I can do about it. Something about money she can get once she's paid $30,000 to Homeland Security and could she borrow it from me, and I told her she was being scammed. At that point she clammed up and hasn't spoken with me since. She's extremely gullible and has been warned about these kinds of things for literally decades, but it does no good.Are the scammable just somehow preprogrammed for being susceptible to this? If that's the case, if it's a condition like dyslexia that the afflicted have no responsibility for, then that's something we should understand. People should be tested for it and laws protecting people with the condition passed.There used to be a show called Mission Impossible here in the states back in the 1960's where they'd often pull off significant scams involving impersonations of other people complete with full head masks and complex electronic gear and carefully prepared fakes. If this was the level of sophistication people were being subjected to then who could blame the victim? But that's not what is happening. People are being scammed because the scammer is contacting thousands and thousands of people looking for that one-in-a-thousand person who is so unknowledgable and naive that they'd fall for falsehoods transparent to everyone else.Something happens to people as they get older that makes them more vulnerable. I have a friend around ten years older than me who a few years ago carried his cell phone, a smart phone, around with him. I showed him how to associated names with phone numbers for texting (he always signs his texts). But while he still texts, he's started leaving his cell phone at home. When he's not home he cannot be contacted, just like in the old days of landlines.I don't think this has anything to do with scamming. This is just an example of one way the elderly gradually lose contact with what's going on around them. They deserve better protections. For example, that TIAA fraud officer should have been able to block the withdrawal pending an investigation. He probably suspected fraud right from the outset, but when she told him she was making the decision on her own he was probably powerless to do anything more. At the very least he should have notified DoCFCU and see if there had been any suspicious transactions in the victims accounts, which there had (the transfer of $25,000 to Binance.US). That should have been enough to begin an investigation right there.But investigations cost money. Who's going to pay for them? Well, how about DoCFCU and TIAA and all such institutions. They both in some way derive fees from the money they manage. Now the money's gone and they don't get those fees anymore. They'd still be getting those fees if they'd done a proper investigation in the first place.Gee, what great timing, someone just began scamming me. Mia has sent me a text saying hi and asking my name. I replied "Beatrice," so I assume I won't hear from her again. I shouldn't have done that. I should have strung them along. It would have been a great example.Oh, wait, she's not giving up. She says my name sounds familiar and wants a photo to see if she knows me, so I sent her a photo of Heidi Klum in a bathing suit in the waters of St. Thomas.Hmmm, she's (more likely a he) gone quiet. Must have recognized Heidi. Oh, well. Agreed, but we can only control banking within US borders, or for the EU within EU borders, or for Britain within British borders. We can't control offshore banking.Of course, we could probably put a lot more controls on transfers in and out of our respective banking systems, but while I don't know a single person who has an offshore account, I bet a lot of such people exist and that making such transactions more open and transparent would cause a huge uproar.--Percy

Romance scams bug me. Often the victims when they find out refuse to believe it and even when they do accept it they often say they still love the scammer anyway.There was a guy being interviewed about a scam involving giving money to a stranger who was claiming to be in trouble. He said that even though he now knows it was a scam, he doesn't regret it because at the time, when he thought that it was true, it was the right thing to do.I get that, but I really hate the scams that exploit our kinder instincts.

I think your numbers are way off -- the gullible vulnerable are legion. Trump's electoral and fund-raising successes suggest a much higher population of potential marks.Scamming is a reiterative process. They get better as they go. In the Liars Poker game of our species, they have gifts.Classic cons of the past relied on greed; now fear is equally productive.Old and young, greedy or fearful, everyone (as you suggest) deserves protection from scammers. We don't blame the frail for their mugging.In time, we may detect differences in those folks who are more cognitively susceptible, but widespread testing -- and intervention -- would open another Pandora's box.

Here's an interesting side note to the story, in commentary by Thom Hartmann at Rawstory. I haven't had time to check out the WaPo story he links.

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— How Trump screwed working people to pay for his tax cuts for the rich... When Republicans were putting together Trump’s massive tax cut for himself and his billionaire buddies back in 2017, they wanted to squeeze an additional few billion out of average working people to pay for some of Trump’s billionaire tax cuts. So they ended, from 2017 to 2025, the deductability of “personal casualty” losses: things like money lost to scams, or homes destroyed by weirding weather. The result has been a wave of middle class people being wiped out after being scammed out of their life savings because now they can no longer deduct those stolen funds from their tax obligations but instead have to pay taxes on them as if they’d “stolen” the money themselves.

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The article in The Washington Post has a self-explanatory headline: “How Congress leaned on crime victims to pay for Trump-era tax cuts.”

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I have a Chrome extension that blocks Javascript that tries to transmit personal information. Blocking the Javascript keeps me from seeing any associated ads, so I haven't seen the ads at the RawStory site, but when I inspected the webpage to see if I could find a handy id to use with a link I found indications that possibly the site is extremely ad intensive. I didn't investigate further, so I can't say for certain.I mainly just wanted to post a couple links. Here's the link to the webpage at RawStory that has the item about Trump screwing working people, it's about 25% down the page: And here's the link to the WaPo article: Fascinating!--Percy

Thanks, Percy.Yes, it's extremely ad intensive, bolstering the subscription offer that loses the ads. I resist.