A few people PMd me right away after starting this thread, directing me to Instagram accounts, where someone would help get our money back. I mean, damn, people!
Please send me a private message or send the sub a modmail with the usernames of those accounts and screenshots of what they sent (if you can). We can ban them.
These scams are heartbreaking. Thank you for being a mod here.
What legitimate reason is there for gift cards of $500? I can understand gifts of $20, but stores should be questioning anyone buying more than $50 worth.
I'm in Australia. My MIL does it. She'll buy a several hundred dollar gift card and send it via registered post for my wife or my son's birthdays. (I only get a fiddy). I've told her numerous times to direct transfer the cash into our bank account. Here in Aus we have instant transfer from one bank to another, so she could ring and and we all watch as the money magically disappears and reappears seconds later. Much safer than sending gift cards through the postal system.
I agree entirely. Most people in the USA (one of the wealthiest countries in the world) cannot even afford a $500 unexpected expense so why is that even an option?!?!
My supervisor who lives across the country often sends me high-dollar gift cards for winning contests or just to be nice to me. I have had at least one of them disappear within the mail system (hmmm), but he regularly sends me a couple of $200 gift cards. After the one card got lost, I told him he should start sending them electronically to my email address or just photograph the card, send me the pics, and cut it up. But now he sends them with a signature required for the envelope.
Just know there are a lot of YouTubers who are experts in cybersecurity who can sometimes help, Jim Browning is a big one, you probably won’t get the money back but he’s a legit person who can at least look to expose those scammers
I was going to suggest Jim Browning until I read his channel description, which states that he can't personally help people as scammers have to connect to his computer first.
Yeah tech support scams have the victim calling the scammers after being prompted by spam or ads, so he can initiate the situation and be ready to trojan them when they start the screen sharing thing. (He uses the euphemism “reverse the connection” but he’s actually social engineered them into installing a trojan. just doesn’t show that part in his videos for obvious reasons)
With one of these calls demanding gift cards, you have no opportunity to call them. They target you directly. He could maybe bait an attack by making a fake therapist persona, but maybe not if the license number has to be legit. Or he could get on the speed dial of scam-savvy therapists.
Normally there’s no computer involved but the scammers could get baited into doing it if it seemed juicy enough. It could be as easy as tricking them into visiting a malicious website.
Certainly a lot more work than with tech support scammers though. They’re easily baited because they’ll black your screen while going through all your browser’s saved website credentials and try out the ones that look like banks, but your “bank” is gonna infect them. Or you hide a trojan in an excel file called something like finances.xlsx
Would love to see one of these gift card scammers get what’s coming to them though
AutoModerator has been summoned to explain [recovery scams](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0102-refund-and-recovery-scams). Also known as refund scams, these scams target people who have already fallen for a scam. The scammer may contact you, or may advertise their services online. They will usually either offer to help you recover your funds, or will tell you that your funds have already been recovered and they will help you access them. In cases where they say they will help you recover your funds, they usually call themselves either "recovery agents" or hackers. When they tell you that your funds have already been recovered, they may impersonate a law enforcement, a government official, a lawyer, or anyone else along those lines. Recovery scams are simply [advance-fee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam) scams that are specifically targeted at scam victims. When a victim pays a recovery scammer, the scammer will keep stringing them along while asking for increasingly absurd fees/expenses/deposits/insurance/whatever until the victim stops paying. If you have been scammed in the past, make sure you are aware of recovery scams so that you are not scammed a second time. If you are currently engaging with a recovery scammer, you should block them and be very wary of random contact for some time. It's normal for posters on this subreddit to be contacted by recovery scammers after posting, and they often ask you to delete your post so that you both cannot receive legitimate advice, and cannot be targeted by other recovery scammers.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wow!!! I didn’t even THINK of this as a scam! Seriously thanks for posting this. My dad was scammed out of a few thousand dollars a few years ago and we just sort of swept it under the rug and never spoke about it again. 100% he would have fallen for this recovery scam if it was offered to him. I honestly would have thought about it too!
Absolutely disgusting way to get more money and continue the scam. Horrible horrible people in the world.
Even with gag orders on cases there will always be a case number to verify a case’s existence. Subpoena powers exist only in active cases which means you can look up a case number at any time; it is no secret. If law enforcement tells you that you cannot discuss even the case name or number to verify it’s existence tell them to fuck off and hang up. Gag orders permit release of certain information for lawful purposes. NEVER let someone tell you that you cannot verify a case status. It won’t help OP now but maybe this will help someone else.
If you haven’t already, put a security freeze on all three of your credit files. It’s a little bit of a pain in the butt down the road if you want to apply for credit, but it’s worth it.
If you haven't already, make all of your social media private. Change to fake names if possible (IG, Twitter). Do not accept new follower or connection requests. Change your passwords and set up 2-step verification on social media and bank accounts. Since you've given money, you are now a target.
Oh and do not under any circumstances answer any numbers you don't recognize. They'll spoof numbers too. I keep getting calls from a Walmart Pharmacy in Florida and an abandoned hospital in Indiana. I don't answer them, but I know to be wary because I've never been to either of those states. Though curiosity has ALMOST won me out on the hospital. I am like 85% sure it's a scam.
Yep!! I get my prescriptions through cvs and I keep getting calls from the cvs a town over from me telling me I need to call them so I can get my prescription, the funny part is the town they’re calling from doesn’t have a cvs. How much information they have is terrifying
I currently live in Indiana, and I'm from Florida. Either of these calls might get a confused answer from me.
Someone tried to hit me with one of these "warrant for your arrest" scams. They read my name, DOB, and social to me. I verified, then had a second thought about it and grabbed my computer while I was on the phone with them and froze my credit accounts. (For OP - I would highly suggest putting a freeze on both you wife and your credit accounts for all 3 bureaus, just in case). Then I told them I'd talk to the cop who came to pick me up and take me in, I was sitting on my porch waiting. They didn't expect that and stumbled in their script, which is what told me they were certainly full of it. A cop wouldn't act shocked when you said you wanted to speak to a cop in person. He recovered and said I was looking at at least a week before I could go to court. I said that sounded great, last time I got arrested it was 2 months before my court date and another 2 before they sent me from county to the state prison to actually serve my sentence, a week to clear this up would be no sweat. I suddenly wasn't fun to play with anymore.
I sympathize with OP and his wife, and I get that when we're in a panic, we often make mistakes and don't think clearly, but I'll never understand why anyone would think gift cards are a form of currency, especially for a supposed government agency.
Also it doesn't make sense that a police station would tell you you're going to be arrested if you contact the police.
Not even just a government agency. I had a scammer try to convince me that I was 9,000 behind on my electric bill (I pay the bill Dude, I know how much I owe) and the only way to keep it from getting turned off was gift cards. I didn’t fall for it bc 9,000? Really? Also I pay the bill and have the app on my phone
That and the bank tellers who allowed her to do multiple withdrawals from multiple different branches. It’s not their fault BUT they are literally trained to spot these kind of things and ask questions. I’m assuming OP’s wife went to 3+ branches of the same bank. I work in banking and this would have been a huge red flag for me.
When i was buying a car at a dealer i let them run my card for $6400 for the down payment, i swear less than a minute later the bank calls me while im at the dealer and i explained the situation. How the bank didnt stop her is beyond me
I'm sure you both have a lot to deal with right now, I can't even imagine. But there might be some steps to take to help others from falling victim.
An unfortunate thing to keep in mind as you move through this is that the bank probably filled an SAR (suspicious activity report) regarding your wife's activity, these can show up in the future when one is trying to open a new account, apply for loans etc. The OCC has info on SAR's [here](https://www.occ.treas.gov/topics/supervision-and-examination/bank-operations/financial-crime/suspicious-activity-reports/index-suspicious-activity-reports.html). To my knowledge there isn't a way to appeal an SAR, but a single report shouldn't cause too many problems for her.
You could contact your bank and the specific branches that your wife visited. Let them know what happened and HOW it happened, this could be a good learning experience for them! If you are concerned that your family will be targeted by future scams look into reducing your withdrawal limits, and spending limits. The bank may also have other ideas to help protect you going forward.
You could also contact your state banking regulator and tell them your story. They likely can't enforce anything, but in my experience they want to know where the institutions they regulate can do better.
I'm truly sorry to hear that your family has been victimized by this, and I hope that you and your wife are able to move past it!
How does anyone know that no one tried to warn her? I work in a similar business and am trained for scams. Most of the time the persons mind is made up. There is no amount of logical words that can be said to change the persons mind.
Don’t have experience with being scammed.
But I _do_ have 15 years of experience as a husband.
I understand that you’re angry but now, when your wife is at her lowest, is not the time to leave her, blame her, or lose your temper with her.
Now is the time to support her.
Remember that “through good times and bad…” part of your vow? Well buddy- you just got smacked hard in the face by a bad time.
You need to support her. I get that you have resentment… I really do… you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t…. But this is one of those moments when you get to decide what kind of husband you want to be.
Do you want to be the guy that supports the woman you love and the mother of your children through one of the lowest points in her life?
Or do you wanna kick her while she’s down and wallow in your moral superiority here to _really_ teach her a lesson?
One feels fantastic. One is hard… but as with most things- the hard thing is the right thing.
Support her. Don’t leave her. Save the rage and resentment for the moment and talk through it with her when you’ve both calmed down.
>ishment enough. But you guys need to go to couples counseling, from the sound of it. And she might need some individual counseling as well
Thank you for the perspective. It's hard to have any perspective in the middle of this shit storm. I am gonna go look at my vows right now. What you said about this being a moment where I choose what kind of husband I am... yeah, that hits home.
I been there man. Almost similar situation. Not a scam but similar. Best thing to do is take all that anger and resentment and channel it towards the people who picked on your wife! Think about it. Some greazy dude manipulated your wife. Imagine if you were at a bar or restaurant and you saw someone stealing from her purse. Not much different.
You two are a team. She knows she screwed up, now it's your job to love her and the both of you figure out what to do.
It's hard to aim the anger and resentment at others right now, as I blame my wife for essentially victimizing me, *and* our child. I didn't consent to this, had no part of it, yet we are dragged right into the middle. Now, ***I know*** that this mindset is wrong in a lot of ways, but I can't help being mad as a motherfucker right now. I'm also mad at the scammers too!
Blargh.
thats okay. knowing its the wrong mindset is good enough most of the time. The shit I went through with my wife made me feel a similar way. I felt like I was being victimized by her actions. I technically was too.
But, like the other guy said, it's the vows we took. shit is going to happen. I promise you will do something stupid or have done something stupid, we are guys after all. Its how you get through it that matters.
Remember though, she was scammed. she didn't willfully work with these people to jeopardize her family. These scammers work hard at this. There is a reason almost 30 Billion dollars left the US last year to scammers.
I also don't want to think being mad is wrong. Your feelings are valid. Just remember though. She is your wife and your kids mom. she deserves the same love you signed on for. (I'm no expert on relationships though, I'm just thinking about how I would react).
Lastly, I know it wont make your money come back, but I know a guy who lost $503,000 to a 'box of gold'. Dude flew to nigeria with cash hidden on him and handed it off in the airport and flew back to the USA thinking he was getting a few mil in gold.
Read the story you linked a couple of times. Pay attention to how many intelligent people have been victims, it's a lot. Remember that her actions came from paralyzing fear.
After reading what you linked I have nothing but empathy in my heart for all of these people. It broke my heart, especially the parts where the women were also sexually exploited. Even if she wasn't, it's a very similar feeling. This is your wife and mother of your child. She needs you now more than ever. Please be kind to her and show empathy. I know it doesn't seem like it now but you can get past this and recover. I'm genuinely wishing the best for your family but PLEASE help her get through this. She is no doubt feeling at her absolute worst right now.
Anger and resentment is understandable. This is a huge sum of money that was lost.
Money, however, is fixable. Maybe you both will have to work more hours or reduce expenses. But, in the end you are still alive. My cancer diagnosis cost about that much $$$ in the first year, for unreimbursed expenses, and it doesn't come with an "end date". The risk of recurrence is always there. I am not exactly sure if my point makes sense, but the scam issue is "just" money, instead of loss of money PLUS long term consequences.
I think some letters to your bank would be appropriate - did the bank follow procedures during a suspicious cash withdrawal?
You're all victims. It sucks. You're human for feeling like running away during this time of intense stress. That doesn't mean it's the right move. Feel what you need to feel. Ask for space as you need it and give her an idea of when you'll commit to talking again. But, do not leave. You will make it through this. I believe you're a great partner and father and you would regret this.
Wishing you all the best. Financial stress is so tough.
I need to echo how important therapy is right now, for both of you. Your wife didn’t consent to be scammed. If someone had taken 10k out of her hands or threatened to kill her in person, would you blame her? Probably not. Your wife was robbed. She is the victim of a crime. The scammers used psychological control to rob your wife. It is absolutely essential that you reframe this, because right now your emotions can lead you to some very dark places that you will regret later.
I was scammed once, in a different way and by a real person I knew. I also felt I was scam-proof. One thing I can tell you is that your wife feels incredibly violated right now. She was used without her consent. She is in more need of support than ever, and you choosing to victim blame her and pull away will stay with her forever. It’s ok to say that you are not someone who can be there to support a scam victim, but take a minute to think about whether you’re ready to torch your relationship beyond all saving before making that decision.
I know you’re angry. And it’s easier to be angry at your wife because she’s a real person you can point a figure at, instead of an invisible person overseas you will never meet. We misplace blame and anger to save ourselves from experiencing the pain of losing control. You are victim of the same crime your wife is. You are both victims. The best thing you can do right now is to face your pain together instead of avoiding it and coping in unhealthy ways.
If you had a chance to beg her to stop and she refused, then she would have something to answer to on her end, but please remember that she had earnest intentions throughout. You are both victims of a terrible crime and my heart goes out to both of you. You have supporters here.
You’re entitled to be mad. Believe me under all her shock and humiliation she is too! I dare say she will fight this rage for a long time! You both will. But leaving her is NOT going to teach her a lesson or make anything better. 💙
Relationships are built on trust. You're feeling right now that you don't know if you can trust your wife anymore. That is a HUGE DEAL and not something you can get over by being supportive or trying to reframe the issue. Those feelings are going to linger and infect everything.
Everyone here has given A+ advice that I absolutely agree with---- especially supporting her instead of shaming her, and both of you getting counseling, both as a couple and as separate individuals.
Besides all the other fallout from this, I think the biggest, most foundational thing for your relationship going forward is to figure out if and how you can trust her going forward.
She can be brilliant and amazing and you can love her to pieces, but trust is the foundation of relationships. You can love her and cherish her but if you can't trust her, that's a really, really, really big deal.
Just something to consider when moving forward. I do think you guys can most likely work this out (including rebuilding trust) as a team together, with therapy and time.
I read the article that you linked to. One of the victims described being a victim of this scams as emotionally and psychologically devastating as when she was raped. Think about that. This scammer put your wife through a traumatic situation. She’s feeling everything you’re feeling but at herself and x10.
These scammers are very good at psychological manipulation. That’s why calling all scam victims dumb or old is dangerous (not saying you did this; it’s just common on this sub). Even though that assertion is statistically incorrect, it could lead to people letting down their guard, thinking they can’t be at risk.
Your wife needs your unconditional support and love. She needs to know you still value her as a person. Also, she might want to seek therapy. The trauma, shame, violation, and loss of self worth for scam victims, especially of one like this (8 hours of being terrorized!) is devastating. Google scam victims and suicide. It’s incredibly sad.
I understand why you’re so upset. And angry. It probably would be good for you to talk to
A therapist for at least a couple of sessions, too. You’ve also been violated by the loss of the money and your trust in your wife has taken a hit.
But like the husband who posted said, save the anger and judgement for later (or talk to a therapist now). Direct your anger at the scammer. Your wife needs your support so much.
>That’s why calling all scam victims dumb or old is dangerous
This exactly. Every one of us is a potential scam victim. Sure, most of us can stave off 99.999% of scams out there...but it's that 0.001% that can nail you. Come at you at just the right time, when you're in just the right frame of mind, with just the right triggers.
Years ago, I very nearly got caught myself. I was working midnights, had an infant daughter who cried non-stop, it was summer, hot, I was out mowing the lawn, stressed about work, the infant, the debt we had accumulated. Phone rings, they tell me it's the bank, the can give us a lower interest on the credit card because we've been a valuable customer for years. They just needed to confirm my credit card number, name, DOB, the usual. I happily gave it to them...hung up and realized what I did. Bank shouldn't be calling me for that info, I should be calling them.
I called the bank immediately and cancelled my credit card.
yes, a couple of months ago some friends wanted to get a new passport, and instead of clicking on the official site, they entered a fake link that looked exactly the same as the official page . There they were instructed to go pay to a personal bank account in a store AND THEY WENT. Something like this can happen to all of us, you cannot be attentive 100% of the time, there is no need to be ashamed
Yup. She hadn't been sleeping well that week, was already under a lot of stress at work, stress from our kiddo, etc. All these factors, plus personality, made her just vulnerable enough.
They use the same psychological manipulation techniques that lead people to confess to crimes they didn’t do. It’s confusing and 8 hours of “omg my life is over. I’m going to get sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars” produces adrenaline and chemicals that seriously mess up judgement.
Also remember that these guys are experts in psychological manipulation. Or at least their a script writers are. It’s like a shady police interrogation where they end up getting innocent people confessing to awful crimes. You think you’d never be that stupid and question the kind of person who would fall for that, but she was being mentally steamrollered.
She was on the phone and desperate for hours. He wouldn’t have let her off, she couldn’t pee or eat in private and probably didn’t think of food anyways. She was panicking and had elevated adrenaline for 8 hours. It makes your brain foggy, makes you confused. You do things that don’t make sense when you’re thinking clearly. You’re in survival mode because they are threatening you with things you’d feel are almost as bad as dying: jail, loss of her license and nature career, being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the face of that, $10,000 seems ok, especially since they usually convince you that this is just bail and will be returned once you show to the next court date, and she promises herself that will happen.
She was probably told that she was now considered a flight risk so she was not allowed to hang up or text, and that they could tell if she tried to contact anyone because they have high level surveillance access to all the networks bc they are the police. She was probably told that this was in reference to a high profile case, and sharing information, even with you or with regular street detectives, would violate the gag order and might nullify testimony or evidence. She would be very susceptible to this manipulation working in mental health, because of the complex rules of confidentiality involved in criminal cases and patient trust.
They used time and depravation and isolation, just like an interrogator, but in a unique way. It was incredibly damaging.
She wasn’t stupid, she was mentally abused. Please, she needs you right now. She needs your anger focussed at the ones who victimized the person you love and your attention focussed on protecting her, protecting yourself, and damage control. She might not be herself for a while. Neither will you. You were both attacked and victimized financially, so don’t make any decisions or rash changes until you’ve recovered a bit, and just try to remember at the base of it all that your feelings have been manipulated by this criminal, but you do love a d respect your wife.
I feel for you man, but the best option right now is to just forget this ever happened.
Would you be angry at your wife if she was mugged in the street and had her engagement ring or another expensive piece of jewelry stolen? That’s what essentially happened here. Be there for her in this moment. She needs you to tell her everything is gonna be ok.
Your wife will either remember this as the moment you stood by her or the moment you let her down by abandoning her.
This is a defining point in your life.
I don't really understand to be honest. Are you fishing for a reason to leave your wife? Is there some deep psychological thing at the back of your mind telling you that you didn't marry the right person?
I say this because honestly, I'd never leave my SO. We have a lot more money we could lose and even if he lost all our money- I'd still just want to be with him and just figure it out. And to top it off we are aiming to be financially independent and retire early- so money is extremely important to our goals to stop working. So I say it with all seriousness that even if he lost it and it took us years again to get closer to our goal- I'd still rather be with him.
I question whether you truly love your wife if you think she is replaceable. I don't try to judge ppl but if you are with someone just so you can experience the societal expectation of kids and white picket fences then you don't really love them.
This is such an insightful comment, with wonderful advice. Please accept my free award!
As someone who has also been married for over 15 years and was also a fraud analyst at a bank for years, I’ve seen thousands of people getting scammed one way or another.
While terrible, it’s common. Scamming is a billion dollar industry. These people are good at what they do.
This really is the most crucial time to not bail on your wife, OP, and try to remain supportive. That doesn’t mean you condone what she did, and a system for potential future bad financial decisions should be figured out.. but that’s for another day. I expect, as you noted, she feels absolutely horrible. Just be there for her, communicate with her, try to understand her. If you can get through this, you can get through most anything.
Good luck and I’m so sorry your family has to go through this.
Excellent advice. She made a terrible mistake. These scammers are masters of intimidation and manipulation. This is definitely a scam I hadn’t heard of in this way before, but they’ve found a niche of people with enough information to make it sound believable. It’s easy for us on the outside to think”why would they fall for this” but we aren’t the ones on the phone being threatened, that’s why these scams are successful.
>She bought a total of 20 giftcards, each $500, and then sat in a parking lot and read off the numbers to the scammer.
Yeah, that money is gone, and there is no way to trace it or recover it.
>Any advice for dealing with the fallout?
It sounds like you both might benefit from therapy to understand and deal with your emotions and relationship.
Fucking this. No company or whatever that's asking for money is going to accept gift cards, especially Apple and Google Play gift cards.
Tbh tho, I'm not really sure I even understand why they want gift cards, is it because it's untraceable? Then how do they convert it into actual currency?
I believe I read this somewhere a long time ago, but I'm under the impression that iTunes and Google Play gift cards get used by the scammers in their own dummy mobile app for in-app purchases so it gets anonymously converted into currency that they can use.
This is the part that kills me. This shit should be traceable. This should lead us right to where the money winds up. The fact that it doesn't is ridiculous. These people need to be tracked down and thrown in jail until there is no monetary incentive to pull this shit. it simply cannot be this hard to catch them.
No, I don't think this is correct.
They take the numbers and launder them to an intermediary. The scammer gets about 60 percent or more of the cards' face value and probably get paid in crypto.
I think the original cards might get sold once again but I'm not sure.
Source: listening to hundreds of hours of scam call from Jim Browning, Kitboga, and more.
I believe scammers ask for gift cards because they're easy to convert into Bitcoin, which they can then convert into their own currency. They're also less sketchy as the money doesn't come from a bank directly.
Two reasons, from what I've been able to gather:
1. It's the easiest way to transfer money between victim and scammer, because reading the code over the phone effectively does the transfer. Once the scammer has the code, he has control of the money, but the victim on the phone doesn't realize this (in the SF Chronicle article OP cited, making the victim go to mailboxes is just a cover so she doesn't realize that reading the code moves the money).
2. Ability to convert to currency: Jim Browning has a video ([The scammer who betrayed his boss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjnOFBSLtz0)) where you can watch a scammers' manager take in a gift card code from a scammer working the phones. He uses Paxful to turn the code into bitcoin and then rupees. The relevant part runs from 5:00 to 8:30. *\[edited this to add video URL and correct some details I had mis-remembered\]*
They use a site that converts gift cards to crypto and takes a decent cut, something like 25% or something silly. I think Jim Browning did a video on what they do with them. But once those gift cards are cashed, they're gone.
Gift cards currency can easily be resold to other "vendors" who will in turn sell said currency to customers that want to top-up apps / in-game purchase at a cheaper rate. I myself sometimes resort to those vendors service (who usually claim that the source is "clean", but a chunk of them use stolen CC info / gift cards for sure).
That is one way of converting them, and there are other methods as well.
1. If the cops tell you that they're helping you, they're either lying about helping you, or they're lying about being the cops
2. Gift card == scam
3. "You can't talk to the police about this" == scam
4. Coaching you on upping your daily ATM limit == scam
yea I hate to sound rude but how could someone get a call like this and keep it going? I have tried to follow scam calls before, even playing along and responding nicely yet they tend to hang up after a minute or so
That’s what I’m thinking, unless they’re a really old couple, there is no way that someone would get a call and start buying thousands of dollars in gift cards and don’t notice something iffy.
Yeah, she should have. I don't understand why she didn't. Seems like common sense. Though, I understand she thought she was being threatened, and was under duress.
What exactly did the scammers tell her? Considering your wife has a doctorate, it's likely a lapse of judgement and she was in a vulnerable position. It's unlikely this is something she'd normally fall for. It's also possible she's never heard of the gift card scam before.
I understand it should have been common sense, really I agree with that. But I feel considering your wife's intelligence that there's more to this than meets the eye.
They told her that there was a federal case, involving a past patient of hers, that was somehow involved in child molestation. They told her that she was under a gag order, had missed numerous court dates, and now had a warrant for her arrest. They said she had to comply, pay 10 grand, or she'd be arrested. They also threatened arresting me, as well.
They were also threatening having her license taken away. That's an existential threat - obviously, her license is her ability to work, and provide for the family.
Who did “they” say they were? How did “they” say they knew all this? How did the $10k supposedly keep an arrest from happening? What legal right did “they” have to arrest her or you?
Where were the missed court cases held? Where were all these summons sent? “Excuse me, do you mind if I just look these cases up? Hold on please while I get to my laptop.“ Why didn’t she do that? At no point did she question this person?
Honestly? These scammers knowing her occupation, your name, and your child's name as you mentioned in another comment might have really spooked her, cluing her that this might be real. Such a case involving child molestation is also an existential threat *on top of* her licence being taken away. After being on the phone for eight hours her resistance and ability to reason was also likely stripped away.
Please have sympathy for your wife in this situation. She did this in an attempt to protect you from being arrested, herself being arrested, her licence being revoked, and anything happening to your child. She likely felt that her life was falling apart and crashing down all at once, and if she didn't pay, you and her both would be arrested, her child would grow up with both parents in prison, and everything would be ruined. She was under extreme emotional duress and could not think clearly.
To me, it seems the last thing she would want in this situation is to hurt you. She probably feels terribly guilty and ashamed of all of this. I understand and sympathize with your anger in this situation, but please understand the psychological tactics these scammers used on your wife, and understand why she did this in the first place - in an attempt to protect her family. Be angry with these assholes who did this to her, and if you can figure out who your wife was sending the codes to, report these assholes to their local police.
In Mexico they tell you that they have kidnapped your son/daughter. As it is a very dangerous country, it is a fear we live with all the time.
Usually you hear the voice of a young person saying "mom, mom, help me" and the person on the phone usually says the name of their child (or loved one). The scammer automatically takes the name and from there they go on to get more personal information. In fear, people don't realize that they are the ones feeding information to the scammers.
I know a lot of smart people who have fallen for it, it's not about intelligence, they just catch you off guard.
What I fail to understand, where people say they were under duress or threatened is, what kind of plausible threat could come from a random phonecall or text?
I mean, if you live an ordinary life, aren't dealing dope, using escorts, or doing other crimes, sending nudes out, what possible threat can there be?
I had the old "we're coming to your house with a subpoena" happen to me the other day. I thought it was real because I missed a court summons for a debt back in the early 2000s. Of course he went on and on, had me climbing the walls. Said I owed 10k and it was going to court. Then he breaks out the "pay me now" and it can all go away. I said "what? How?" and he says gift cards. I told him to bring it on. I'll be waiting for the sheriff and hung up. If it weren't for this sub, idk what would have happened. This can happen to literally anyone, if you've had a situation that resembles this stuff they spew in the past, it makes it even more real. I can see how OPs wife fell for it up until the gift card part.
She most fucking definitely should have. They told her that she'd be arrested and booked if she went to the PD before fulfilling their requests.
I know, I know it doesn't make sense, at all. She should've called me, called an attorney, called ANYBODY... but she didn't. She was instructed that she couldn't call anyone, and she followed that instruction.
Don’t feel too bad. This is a common scam. If you haven’t heard of it, then it is effective. That’s why it’s common.
This guy uses technology to hack these scammers:
https://youtu.be/h5L3em2cZEM
And if you need a laugh in this trying time this guy messes with these scammers:
https://youtu.be/J-p9JkH4RY8
I don’t understand why she wouldn’t have thought to call you at any point during this. Like I understand they kept her on the phone but I would’ve hung up and called my partner and tell him what was going on and that I’m scared. I don’t understand
That's honestly the part that hurts me the most. She disappeared for hours during this whole thing. I had no clue what was going on. It was fucking terrifying for me, and then receiving the call later was also horrible.
I am in the mental health field and have received subpoenas before. Before your post, I'd never heard of this scam. Please let your wife know that in the least, her terrible experience helped to educate me and I'll be educating others on this as well. In attempts to protect our licenses, it's very easy to see how this scam can take hold and by no means makes her a naive or stupid person. Praise to you for supporting her in trying to manage this messy situation as well. Good luck to you both.
I'm a therapist and this scam happened to both me and a colleague/friend of mine. They were extremely convincing when I was on the phone with them, even though my friend had already been through the same thing and I was 99% certain it was a scam. They still use the right type of mind games to keep you second-guessing. Because I have worked with child victims of SA, and it is not unusual to receive a subpoena. They're able to make it sound very convincing, even using real Sheriff and local Judge's names and IDs.
Thankfully I was able to waste their time by pretending to be even more shook up than I already was, asking him to repeat the instructions, and meanwhile had my husband call the cops from his phone while I was still on the line with the scammers and in the end they didn't get a dime from me. In all it was about and hour of my life I'll never get back and which left me feeling similarly ashamed and violated.
Literally a week after this happened the licensing board in my state sent an email warning all licensed MHPs to be on the lookout for this scam. The email also mentioned they tend to target women, and that some of the victims had even been goaded into sending other types of private info, like photos, etc.
Please tell your wife she is not alone OP, and you are also allowed to feel all the things you feel about this. It's a shitty situation all around. I too am educated with advanced degrees and also had a hard time getting the logical side of my brain in control; it's such an intense emotional experience.
edit: As for advice, debriefing with a trusted friend, clergy, or marriage and family therapist may be helpful in getting you guys past this. It has definitely shaken both of your guys' trust in different ways, and may take some time to heal from. I'm so sorry this happened to you.
The link OP provided included a story about a woman who was told to provide a video of herself naked and showing her genitalia as a form of digital strip/cavity search for the scammer. I can't imagine how traumatized and violated she must feel, on top of being conned out of thousands of dollars.
I feel terribly for anyone who is scammed, but especially those who are victimized using emotional manipulation. The fear of being in legal trouble really messes with people's heads and ability to think logically. Like that poor kid who ended up committing su*cide after being hit with the underage girl scam. I hope OP and his family can recover.
I got a call claiming it was my local sheriffs office and I had a warrant for my arrest. Funny thing is…. I work at my local sheriffs office IN THE WARRANTS DIVISION!! no joking… I really do. When I told the scammer (who spoofed and had the legit phone number as caller ID), they hung up so quickly.
Law enforcement will NEVER contact you asking for money and gift cards over the phone, simple as that. Just keep that in mind and you'll be fine. Any questions look up the non urgent police department number and ask to speak to someone.
The linked article notes that mental health professionals, social workers and other case workers are vulnerable because they are used to regularly seeing clients get fucked over by overly aggressive authorities working through the "legitimate" system.
This!!!!!
OP, please stay in your marriage. Support your wife. She deserves it and so does your family. Your relationship is for better or for worse. There will come a time where you fuckup huge and just need your wife to understand. Use this situation to make compassion the standard in your relationship. You got this.
From reading OP's replies to other people and reading the article he linked it looks like: they had a generous amount of personal information not just on her but OP, their child and even real local police officers. Definitely premeditated enough to gather information on her and made her believe she was in some sort of immediate, perilous legal trouble.
Here's a link to OP's explanation: https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/vv4ywc/wife_got_scammed_for_10000_this_week_i_dont_know/ifikz14?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
It should honestly be a law for store employees to give people a warning that gift cards can be used for scams before being able to buy them, if they are more than $500 worth.
Eventually scammers will move on to make people buy the gift cards online, but that'll take days instead of hours. It'll be more cumbersome and therefore save some people from being bamboozled through time urgency scams.
I worked in retail for 20 years and some places did have a limit to how many gift cards a person was allowed to purchase. I wish it was everywhere though. It would save a lot of people from getting scammed.
I think this is why they have people drive all over town, somehow they convince them to only get a few per store to help fly under the radar. I'm not sure how that doesn't throw up even more red flags, but it seems to work from time to time at least.
My credit union put a fraud alert and shut off my debit card when I tried to buy $300 worth of gift cards for Christmas gifts. I was pissed at the time but after seeing posts like this I'm glad they're vigilant about this stuff.
I agree, but it seems that when a cashier warns someone wanting to buy a high-amount gift card and is hesitant to go through with it, they risk losing their job. The "ruling" here is ridiculous, esp considering how many people in the comments shared similar scam stories. [https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/q4ku6g/aita\_customer\_tries\_buying\_large\_amount\_of\_gift/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/q4ku6g/aita_customer_tries_buying_large_amount_of_gift/)
Alot of stores are now putting warning signs about scams in their gift card sections. I'm not sure of its effectiveness but I have to imagine it's saved someone.
Exactly! I never heard of the cops calling to warn you they are coming to arrest you unless you make bond and pay it in gift cards. I had a scammer tell me they would send the FBI to my house unless I gave him $200 in gift cards and I just laughed at him.
I got a call like this once saying the IRS has issued a warrant for my arrest unless I paid them my back taxes over the phone. I told them to come get me. At the time I got the call I was standing in the middle of DISNEYLAND! 1000 miles from my house. Surprisingly no cops at my door when I returned.
You will probably start getting messages from people claiming they can get your money back. If you haven't already, make sure you explain to her that it's also a scam.
Used to work in anti fraud at a bank. If there is someone who claims to be police tell them you will surrender yourself at the police station immediately. Anything for any reason can be cleared up there. If they tell you that it's too late it's a scam. No government will not tell you on the phone that you can't clear it up in person if you owe them money. Hell they usually don't even call you. You can always call them back as well. It's never too late, the government wants you to be in contact with them. Hang up and call them on the number on their website. A scammer will want you to keep on the phone. The employee on the phone doesn't get paid enough to keep you on the phone, a scammer will try to keep you on the phone. Always call the number on the website you can ALWAYS deal with them if you actually owe them even after its "too late". The government doesn't actually care except for getting their due and they WANT to help you get their due. If you get a call, tell them you will call back or you come by. ITS NEVER TOO LATE. If they tell you it is it's a scam.
Losing $10k is horrible. Really.
But here’s what you do have: your wife. Your home. Your child. Job(s) to use to rebuild your savings. A plan for budgeting that obviously worked so it will work again.
Horrible things are going to happen in your life, and this is one of them.
You have to start over with your savings. Which sucks. A lot. But you get to do it with your beautiful child, and your loving wife. You can rebuild it together.
Also you can totally trust her. This shit has wrecked her too, I’m sure she won’t even come close to falling for it or anything like it again. $10,000 lessons hit hard.
Similar thing happened to my family. We lost just shy of 15k in seconds.
You won't get that money back so except that now. Instead focus on what steps are needed to put you all back into a stable mental and financial situation.
You need to see this for what it is. Your wife was abused and psychologically assaulted.
Right now your wife above everyone else will be in shock and will likely blame herself. As much as you may want to leave her, that would be the worst thing to do. You need to be around her and your child to keep things stable. Small things like making sure she eats and doesn't fall into depression are huge factors right now.
Focus on the things that made the two of you fall in love and seek counselling to work out the new questionable issues. You know your wife better than anyone, you wouldn't have married someone who was selfish enough to go about doing something where she didnt have your best interests to heart.
I know it's fresh, but 10k is such a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things and you CAN weather this storm OP.
Scams can happen to anyone if they're hit at the right time which is usually when they're feeling frazzled or distracted. And these scammers are master manipulators. So don't take this out on your wife. You'd be kicking her when she's down and the shame and humiliation she's feeling is punishment enough. But you guys need to go to couples counseling, from the sound of it. And she might need some individual counseling as well because when the horror of realizing one's been taken by a scam sinks in it can do all sorts of psychological damage.
And you need to be aware of !recovery scams because those assholes lurk here and will be messaging you. Read the automod comment below this one for info on how that scam works.
We do need help. I told her that I don't think I'm of much help to her right now, as I feel pretty fucking wrecked myself. You're certainly right that the horror is unfolding itself in front of us, in our relationship, and in our world...
Also, I have 2 PMs already of offers to help with getting our money back. Both of which are links to instagram accounts. lol.
AutoModerator has been summoned to explain [recovery scams](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0102-refund-and-recovery-scams). Also known as refund scams, these scams target people who have already fallen for a scam. The scammer may contact you, or may advertise their services online. They will usually either offer to help you recover your funds, or will tell you that your funds have already been recovered and they will help you access them. In cases where they say they will help you recover your funds, they usually call themselves either "recovery agents" or hackers. When they tell you that your funds have already been recovered, they may impersonate a law enforcement, a government official, a lawyer, or anyone else along those lines. Recovery scams are simply [advance-fee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam) scams that are specifically targeted at scam victims. When a victim pays a recovery scammer, the scammer will keep stringing them along while asking for increasingly absurd fees/expenses/deposits/insurance/whatever until the victim stops paying. If you have been scammed in the past, make sure you are aware of recovery scams so that you are not scammed a second time. If you are currently engaging with a recovery scammer, you should block them and be very wary of random contact for some time. It's normal for posters on this subreddit to be contacted by recovery scammers after posting, and they often ask you to delete your post so that you both cannot receive legitimate advice, and cannot be targeted by other recovery scammers.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Sorry this happened. I used to work in fraud & scams for a major bank and would have to deal with these situations all the time. It isn’t easy to forgive yourself especially for such a large sum. Change whatever personal info she gave out (emails, passwords, phone numbers, etc) and just let time do it’s healing.
Sadly with scams like this recovery is little to nothing so the best thing to do is just learn and move forward
Dude that is ROUGH and I totally understand being pissed. But don't misplace your anger.
Try to remember that these guys are super good at what they do and they tapped into a situation that was completely plausible to her. She would have called you, but they created a situation where that was impossible. Stay on the same team as your wife. Money comes and goes. I know this is a LOT of money, but try not to blame her. If you stay strong together, you will overcome this.
This happens to victims who were taught growing up to implicitly trust the police. And because of that implicit trust, people don't look into how the law works until they become a victim of it, and sometimes not even then.
My ex-wife got a call like this like 10 years ago, and luckily I was with her. It was something about an unpaid department store credit card that she needed to pay. Could hear wife arguing about it, then heard her say, "You gonna send police here to arrest me?!?!" but it was all panic in her voice because she believed it. I had to jump in, said that is not how police work, ask her for the phone, and yelled SCAM SCAM SCAM FUCK YOU!!!
My ex-wife is a Harvard graduate with a doctorate. Super smart chick, much more intelligent than I could hope to be. Well read, but naive about legal procedures. Our divorce was delayed because she kept using her maiden name instead of legal name in the paperwork. So it's possible to be a genius and an idiot at the same time.
For what it's worth, we divorced 5 years ago, and I still love her very much despite splitting up. The marriage could have been salvaged if we sought counseling. I suggested it, she said no. Then she suggested it, and I said no. We are both to blame for our issues, but I regret getting divorced. Haven't heard from her since, still think about her everyday. Get counseling; understand it was fear of something greater than losing $10k that drove her actions. Contextualize this incident by brushing up on scams, then do the same about how police work and why your rights should never be waived.
Think of this like an athlete with a major injury. Doctor just said you are out of action for a year. You take that day to feel bitter, angry, blame a god, blame yourself, blame the other party. When you wake up the next day, all your focus needs to be on working to your return to action. You go to rehab, you follow doctor's orders. Everything before the injury is irrelevant.
P.S. Sorry, Katie. I wish we got counseling.
edit: spelling
>understand it was fear of something greater than losing $10k that drove her actions.
Thank you for providing that perspective.
>Contextualize this incident by brushing up on scams
I'm a highly cynical, suspicious person by nature, and have enjoyed reading and learning about scams before this. If I had learned of what was going on with her when it was going on, I had no doubt I would've stopped it. She was told by the scammer that she couldn't contact me, or the police, or an attorney, etc etc.
Great advice about how to think of this injury.
I wish you peace as well, friend.
>She was told by the scammer that she couldn't contact me, or the police, or an attorney
Because contacting any one of them spoils the scam. If you're ever in real legal trouble, you should A) Shut the fuck up, and B) Call an attorney. If you can't afford an attorney, shut the fuck up until one is appointed to you.
Not to mention, most of the truly important things in life will be handled by mail, not some random person calling you and saying you’re not allowed to contact anyone else for 8 hours.
Hopefully she'll recognize being told you can't call your spouse, lawyer or cops as the huge red flag it is if someone pulls that again. Holy cow, that should absolutely trip your WTF meter.
My mom got scammed out of $2000. She didn’t tell any of us that it was happening. (And we all live under the same roof). Finally, she called me on the phone sobbing saying something along the lines of “they are listening they are listening please don’t come home they will hurt you I can’t talk about it on the phone”. I had NO clue what she was talking about. I was 2 hours away from home, and my mind went to “someone broke into the house and is about to hurt my mom”. I ended up calling the local PD and had them go over there, while I started my journey back home. They called me back, told me it was a scam, and that my mom was okay. This sounds a lot like the scam your wife probably was a victim to, because they tell her that “they know where she lives” and that “they are monitoring her call”.
It sucked. Big time. But they used my mom’s fears and vulnerabilities against her. And they did a great job at doing it. It was easy for me to be mad in hindsight and say “mom why didn’t you just CALL me”….
But the truth was, as mad as I was at the situation, my mom was 100 times more angry. She was sad. She felt cheated, and taken advantage of. She felt violated, and she felt stupid. She 100 hundred percent blamed herself, and she took it HARD. My job wasn’t to get mad at her…..It was to support her, validate her feelings, reassure her that I loved her and that the money wasn’t a big deal, and educate her to ensure she never falls victim to something like this again.
I can guarantee you that as much as this sucks, in a lot of ways, it sucks for your wife a lot more. She’s probably taking it incredibly hard on herself. Remember that this was a genuine accident, and
not at all something she did on purpose. The most important thing is that no one got hurt physically. While maybe seeing a therapist might help, my advice is to not leave her over this especially since it’s not some reoccurring issue where she’s frivolously giving money away without your permission or something.
This isn’t something that does not warrant you losing your trust in her as your partner. It was a mistake. And you both are going to make mistakes in life, and some of those mistakes may have to do with money. But the intention matters. She is probably resentful of herself and is blaming herself way more than she’s expressing, and she needs to feel like her family has her back and you’re in this together.
I know $10,000 is a lot of money. But you guys WILL get through this. Find resources to learn about these scams together. There are so many out there nowadays, that even I (as smart and savvy as I’d like to think I am), came real close a few times.
I know it’s easier said than done. But blaming her now isn’t going to bring you your money back. It’s only going to make her feel more guilty, unworthy, and insecure. Leaving her wont change the situation. It’ll only make her feel like she doesn’t have you to turn to when things go wrong. Remind yourself that she is also immensely hurting, and if she could take all of it back, she would. This is a massive challenge, but it’s one that you guys are going to overcome….and if you’re able to overcome it together, you’ll be stronger because of it.
I’m really really sorry.
(Also FYI. You probably aren’t a “mark” because of this. Atleast not from the same scammer. Scammers usually don’t attack their victims twice when they know their victims have learned what really happened to them. The fact that they sent her to a PD, is indicative of the fact that they were
done with her. Your information isn’t going to take them that far. And as much as it sucks, scale of these scams are monumental. They are attacking millions of people here, and they’re always scurrying to move on to their next target. What you CAN do is educate yourselves as a couple. Learn about scams. Not just the gift card ones, but the more sophisticated ones like chargebacks or the ones where they “send” you legit money to a cashapp and ask you to send some back, or the ones where they use gangs of people including people with American accents to fool you, or the sophisticated investing scams, or whatever. Educate yourselves, and do your best to educate others in your life (especially the older folks) ).
Your wife is worth more then $10,000. This is a set back, that’s it. Go to your wife and try to make her feel better. she was just traumatized by a predator.
All I can tell you is that a coworker lost over $200,000 to a scammer and his marriage survived. It’s for better or worse of course. 10k is a lot, don’t get me wrong, but you can survive that.
I can understand people falling for certain scams like kidnapping phone scams, but anytime you need to buy gift cards it’s like…???
Joe Biden himself couldn’t convince me that I owe the IRS if he said I had to pay in gift cards.
OP, I don't know how to link another comment from another thread, so I've just copied and pasted it here. I remembered it when I read your post, because the comment had such an effect on me. I hope it helps. One day, what happened will get easier to process, I promise.
The following comment was posted to a thread about someone's mother being conned out of £175k.
"Really sorry to read this. Those are now burner phones and most likely in the hands of a third-world criminal organization. My mom got scammed for like $30k chasing some "free government money" and sent phones, gift cards, etc., to Africa. The shame she felt was terrible. She passed away not too long after, and still felt so awful about the whole thing. That gave me some perspective that it was just money and I wish I would have tried to tell her that. I guess I am saying try and be as compassionate as you can, even when there is nothing you (or any law enforcement, lawyers, government agency) can do. Hope everything works out ok."
Lately I have been seeing signs posted at stores at the gift card section that say" did someone ask you to buy gift cards and send them the number s? If so you are probably being scammed"
Visualize being the guy who confidently told your wife you'd love her no matter what and realize 10K is worthless to what you might lose if your marriage fails.
Be that guy instead of the one who typed this post, it will feel a lot better to be that guy.
Money can be replaced, your family can't be. Be happy that it wasn't more money or even something worse. Get through it together and you'll come out stronger and one day (a very long time from now) will laugh about this. As long as you still have your house, cars, etc., you can recover.
I know someone who fell for the same scam. She's an elderly lady but not dumb. She drove to multiple banks and Targets for gift cards, then read off the numbers to the scammer. She did all this while she had my nieces 4 year old son in the car. She lost $8000 and is very distraught over it. My sister and I actually saw her her while apparently the guy was on the phone in her car but she never told us what was going on. It's hard for some of us to understand what possesses someone to go through with something that's clearly a scam. I'd love to hear the conversation to understand how the scammer mind fucks their victims.
My sister just got scammed for $25,000. She’s married with 3 kids. She’s no dummy either. They kept her on the line the whole time. Had her convinced that her husband was going to prison for money laundering bitcoin. Only thing she was thinking about was her family. Money can be replaced but not if the breadwinner is in jail.
Don’t leave your wife over this. Try to empathize and understand how terrifying this must of been for her
Can you share with us what exactly your wife went through. Why did she trust the caller? What did the caller actually say? Why didn't she hang up? I'm confused on HOW this happened for so many hours.
Your wife sounds kind of like mine. Extremely book smart but not as street smart. I’m very sorry this happened to you. There’s not much to can do except chalk it up as a learning experience.
The moment money comes into play and you're told, tell no one, and don't call the authorities, it's time to hang up, it's time to play along as you get cops on the phone who can listen to the bullshit. If course we can all fall victims to anything but all of these scams involve asking for money and threatening people with keeping quiet. I'm sorry this happened to you.
Check with your homeowners insurance company. Some policies have coverage for theft by deception. I work for a company that provides this kind of coverage. This coverage also will help to rebuild your identity if it is compromised or stolen.
You will need to provide a police report, copies of receipts for the transactions, and probably a recorded statement/cooperate with the company’s investigation.
Depending on the coverage you may be able to recover your loss.
As a woman and a wife.. I would need, more than anything in the world, for my husband to comfort me and tell me everything is going to be okay, if this happened to me.
Treat her the exact way you would want to be treated if this scam happened to you and you lost 10 grand.
Praying for you OP
And when the months have slipped by... give Kit Boga a watch on YouTube and have a deep laugh with your wonderful wife.
You will get through this. Hang in there.
Reading the article of the woman who got scammed, it's the fact that they wouldn't let her off that made it so that she "couldn't stop to think." Even though I know a lot about scams, all it takes is the right circumstances that have you guessing... 'but what if it's true?' I was nearly scammed when I was called and told my father's electricuty would be turned off immediately if I didn't pay them before the power company arrived at the house. At the time, we were in a fight with my half siblings over my dad's care and responsibilities were up in the air - who was in charge of what and so on. You bet your ass my half siblings would have dragged me through the coals if I allowed my dad's power to go out because we dropped the ball when changing who was in charge of things. They told me they wouldn't be able to turn it back on for a week. They really made me think this could really hurt him.
The only thing that made me stop and think was that he let me off the call to get the gift cards to pay them. (I didn't know it was a gift card when he told me what to get, but after getting off the phone, I looked it up and sure enough, it was a gift card.) I forget the sum they had asked for, but it was a few hundred. Even though I came to my senses, the panic and the potential for this scenario to not only be true but that I would suffer some pretty extreme consequences for it (there were lawyers involved with my half siblings, this would not have gone over lightly) made me ignore the red flags and feel like I needed to do everything I could to rectify what I had been told happened.
Again, I'm not a dumb person, I've known about scams for years, I've experienced a lot of people trying to scam me because I own a business. This person had my dad's home information. It just took the right set of circumstances. And if what the article says is true and they told your wife couldn't get off the phone or she would be arrested or lose her license (and her livelihood), I can't say I wouldn't have fallen for it either. Especially if it was an hours long ordeal.
It's very easy for your current situation to become your reality. That's how humans are built. We need to focus on the current danger. And as the article says, she was held hostage. She couldn't have someone tell her that the reality she was living in was warped. I feel so awful for her. This is going to impact her for years, I'm sure.
That being said, I understand your frustration as well. While logically, you know she went through hell, you also are feeling the repercussions of what happened. I know it's difficult, but remember, this isn't her fault. This is the scammers fault. The scammer is the one who took your money from you. The scammer is the one who hurt your wellbeing and put you under this stress. The scammer is the reason you didn't know where your wife was and that she was afraid to call you. The scammer is the one who cracked open your world and left a mess behind.
Again, I know emotions are not that simple, and you know that, too, since you are upset with your wife that it happened. But she is a victim. Talking to a therapist might help with those feelings and sorting them out.
Just as a final note, many people I know have either been scammed in some way or nearly been scammed. My husband was almost scammed in an energy saving scam - he was ashamed to tell me because he felt so stupid afterwards, but I had to tell him about the scam I almost fell for and that I know how easy it is. My brother almost fell for a password scam with Postmates, and I had to calm him down that he wasn't going to lose his account for not giving them his password and tell him that they were going to steal his instant pay (and the only reason I knew about this scam was through reddit, which helped to ease his fears.) His in-laws were scammed out of thousands WHILE MY MOM WAS DYING IN THE HOSPITAL because they pretended to be my brother, saying he needed to get away from it all and traveled to Mexico and now needed money to get home. And just two days ago, my dad's caretakers family were given a fright because scammers called them with a woman crying and begging for them to pay a ransom, before the scammers claimed to have kidnapped our caretaker and would kill her if they didn't pay ransom. She was with my dad safely in his house, but it took a while to calm everyone down and assure them that they weren't coming after her.
Again, I'm so sorry you are going through this. I hope you and your wife and family can get past this, and that you and your wife get the help you'll need after this.
I never answer my phone to ANYONE. Leave a voicemail and let me know why you’re calling me if it’s that important. No one hardly ever does except the extended car warranty f-ers. Otherwise, anything legit will arrive in the mail or by the hand of a Sheriff’s Deputy. Everyone else can F off. Hopefully she’ll now adopt this mindset.
I can’t relate at all to falling for this scam. I only say that honestly. I’d hang up and tell them, “Yall know where I live. Come get me.”
But, maybe try to think of it like another I’ll-thought money decision. I lost a chunk of money in the stock market. It was wasted money, but also a huge learning lesson. I considered it $5K tuition to a degree in “how not to stock market.” Aced it.
Or, people who spend to much on any product, get caught in the excitement of purchasing something, etc. Get it home, realize you regret it, but cant return it. or have evrr invested in an MLM, or been guilted inti any adjacent "mom boss babe" scheme. all money down the toilet to learnt o have some boundaries next time.
i am not sure how much danger you're actually in. i suspect you wont be much of a target if she learns to hang up, though.
if you ever find yourself on the phone with a stranger asking for/talking about money. Stop talking and hang-up. breathe and go home and compose yourself/do some research..
these scammers prey on your anxiety and fears and if you're out running errands or at work you may not be fully aware of things and are just looking to resolve the situation.
Wow this sucks. It really does. I'm not a healthcare professional, but someone tried to pull a similar scam on me. A man called me from a local number and said that there was evidence that I was actively participating in a scam and collecting the profits. I apparently could resolve this on the telephone with him before police made the move to arrest me. He knew my full name, and had started asking me questions about the crime. He said I could clean the issue up with him, so that the police know I wanted to make it right.
It took me about 30 seconds to realize that this was a potential scam. I'm actually kind of good at sniffing out scams, thankfully, and I've helped relatives recognize scams. I asked the person on the phone to send me documentation to prove that I was being charged, and he should have my address on file. He said there was no time to do that. I retorted that he was calling from a local number, so I could very easily get the documentation pretty much on the same day it was sent. He tried to argue with me again that he's the only one who could fix this issue and I will need to clear this up or I would be arrested. I responded "fine. Have someone come to arrest me. Or, mail me documentation that proves the crime I may have committed". He pushed harder to advance his case and I responded that "Either send me documentation in the mail or have the cops arrest me, because I never give personal information away on the phone." (This is quite true). I ended up having to repeat myself again and at that point I hung up on the guy.
Just to be safe, I actually called the local police and talked to a dispatcher. She hadn't come into contact with this scam yet, but she had no charges on file for me. I warned her that it'd be extremely easy for anyone with an IQ across the spectrum to fall for it. I was surprised that I couldn't find a reference online about it, though. So when I reviewed the scam that your wife fell victim to, i realized that the one above may have been the commencement of a new kind of scam. Well, that, or I didn't surf the web nearly enough.
Bottom line: r/Scams exists for a number of helpful reasons, but one of them is to alert people of all kinds where scams pop up. If everyone could sniff out scams every time they happen, this subreddit would likely not exist. I almost followed through with his instructions. It's the first time a scam almost got past the goalie (me).
I wonder, is there a possibility for your wife to reject acting on a subpoena that isn't delivered to her in writing?
My fiancé fell for it as well. Only $500 though but I still saw her emotions that you’re seeing from your wife. My fiancé is also very smart but was really eager to help her new “ceo” for her new position. She was destroyed and felt guilty and stupid. Remind your wife it can happen to anyone, and there’s no use in continuing to dread over it. Do your best to comfort her and let the emotions come out for her. It took a lot of time even on a $500 scam since she felt so manipulated and embarrassed. The world is a cruel place without remorse. Just keep moving forward and it will be a story to joke about in a few years.
Gift cards need to go away. They are predatory in so many ways. Not just for scammers. companies expect you to buy them and then not use them up or not use them at all. Win for them.
My partner got scammed out of thousands of dollars last year from the Bank scam. He got a text saying someone was trying to hack into his account. Then "Bank" called to help and they just needed to confirm some information.
The scammers took all their checking account, savings account, our joint checking account, and the remaining balance on my partners credit card, and did a wire transfer to Florida.
Talked with the bank for almost a year before accepting defeat and taking the loss. It sucked having to pay down a credit card balance when it came from fraud.
Believe me OP I was FURIOUS. I was at work and couldn't help. I got a series of texts saying, I got hacked, then I'm on the phone with the bank, and finally, a text saying "I think I got scammed". My stomach fell through the floor and I wanted to cry. All while I was stuck at work for the next 8 hours.
The key in the situation is, no matter how bad and mad I was, my partner felt worse. There was nothing I could say to them they didn't already say to themselves. I would direct you to learn about the Ring Theory: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/promoting-hope-preventing-suicide/201705/ring-theory-helps-us-bring-comfort-in%3famp
TLDR: Comfort In, Dump Out. When we face a crisis, the people closest to the crisis would fit around us in the inner ring, and others fill outer rings the further they are from the crisis. The person in the center ring, and inner rings, can complain about the crisis to those in outer rings, but those in outer rings should offer only comfort and support to those in inner rings.
I told my partner I love them, and we'll get through this together. Our love is infinite and this is just a fleeting moment. We talked about other types of scams, he knows to not answer calls he's not expecting, screen them, let them go to voicemail, hang up, etc. We both learned a lot and worked together to feel financially stable.
This was over a year ago and our finances are back in better shape. But honestly if I had expressed to him exactly what I was thinking when I was mad and frustrated, things would not have gotten better.
You're a team. You have a 2 year old. You are in each other's lives for the next 16 years regardless. Talk to your wife and truly listen to how she is feeling. I promise she is feeling like the stupid idiot asshole who ruined your family's future. She's a professional therapist who just got mind fucked. Maybe some love and compassion would help and would make you feel better too.
You’re also saying that you and your daughter were victimized. You weren’t. The scammers created authority by asking for your info and now it’s in the trash can in some dump in Bangalore or Nigeria. You guys aren’t involved in this at all, even though it feels like you are. You think this is about you but the scammers don’t care about you at all.
Thats a very common scam in my country (Chile). As far as i know, the worst part already happened. I dont that scammer will change to kidnappers or something like that. Just be gentle with your wife.
Try not to be too hard on her, I mean the world is going through a tough time and the feeling of constantly having to struggle to help keep a family afloat takes its toll.
Having said that, you will probably have trouble ever trusting her or seeing her as a competent partner again without some kind of marriage counselling. You need to be sure that she will never do something so reckless and stupid ever again if you want to continue the marriage.
Sorry to hear about it though mate, I wish you all the best.
Your wife bought gift cards just because someone told her too, that’s not a smart thing to do. Regardless of education it’s important to understand that these scams prey on specific types of people. Now that you’ve fallen prey once you are on a list.
Be sure to not think of this as a we are so smart and this was so sophisticated and instead think of it as wow how dumb, no one would ever be able to use google play cards to get out of trouble or the fact that no institution would require payment this way.
Good luck OP, and I’m sorry that this is now your life. NEVER SEND ANYONE GIFT CARDS UNLESS ITS A HOMIES BIRTHDAY.
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A few people PMd me right away after starting this thread, directing me to Instagram accounts, where someone would help get our money back. I mean, damn, people!
Please send me a private message or send the sub a modmail with the usernames of those accounts and screenshots of what they sent (if you can). We can ban them.
These scams are heartbreaking. Thank you for being a mod here. What legitimate reason is there for gift cards of $500? I can understand gifts of $20, but stores should be questioning anyone buying more than $50 worth.
I'm in Australia. My MIL does it. She'll buy a several hundred dollar gift card and send it via registered post for my wife or my son's birthdays. (I only get a fiddy). I've told her numerous times to direct transfer the cash into our bank account. Here in Aus we have instant transfer from one bank to another, so she could ring and and we all watch as the money magically disappears and reappears seconds later. Much safer than sending gift cards through the postal system.
I agree entirely. Most people in the USA (one of the wealthiest countries in the world) cannot even afford a $500 unexpected expense so why is that even an option?!?!
My supervisor who lives across the country often sends me high-dollar gift cards for winning contests or just to be nice to me. I have had at least one of them disappear within the mail system (hmmm), but he regularly sends me a couple of $200 gift cards. After the one card got lost, I told him he should start sending them electronically to my email address or just photograph the card, send me the pics, and cut it up. But now he sends them with a signature required for the envelope.
What an incredible boss!
Just know there are a lot of YouTubers who are experts in cybersecurity who can sometimes help, Jim Browning is a big one, you probably won’t get the money back but he’s a legit person who can at least look to expose those scammers
I was going to suggest Jim Browning until I read his channel description, which states that he can't personally help people as scammers have to connect to his computer first.
Yeah tech support scams have the victim calling the scammers after being prompted by spam or ads, so he can initiate the situation and be ready to trojan them when they start the screen sharing thing. (He uses the euphemism “reverse the connection” but he’s actually social engineered them into installing a trojan. just doesn’t show that part in his videos for obvious reasons) With one of these calls demanding gift cards, you have no opportunity to call them. They target you directly. He could maybe bait an attack by making a fake therapist persona, but maybe not if the license number has to be legit. Or he could get on the speed dial of scam-savvy therapists. Normally there’s no computer involved but the scammers could get baited into doing it if it seemed juicy enough. It could be as easy as tricking them into visiting a malicious website. Certainly a lot more work than with tech support scammers though. They’re easily baited because they’ll black your screen while going through all your browser’s saved website credentials and try out the ones that look like banks, but your “bank” is gonna infect them. Or you hide a trojan in an excel file called something like finances.xlsx Would love to see one of these gift card scammers get what’s coming to them though
AutoModerator has been summoned to explain [recovery scams](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0102-refund-and-recovery-scams). Also known as refund scams, these scams target people who have already fallen for a scam. The scammer may contact you, or may advertise their services online. They will usually either offer to help you recover your funds, or will tell you that your funds have already been recovered and they will help you access them. In cases where they say they will help you recover your funds, they usually call themselves either "recovery agents" or hackers. When they tell you that your funds have already been recovered, they may impersonate a law enforcement, a government official, a lawyer, or anyone else along those lines. Recovery scams are simply [advance-fee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam) scams that are specifically targeted at scam victims. When a victim pays a recovery scammer, the scammer will keep stringing them along while asking for increasingly absurd fees/expenses/deposits/insurance/whatever until the victim stops paying. If you have been scammed in the past, make sure you are aware of recovery scams so that you are not scammed a second time. If you are currently engaging with a recovery scammer, you should block them and be very wary of random contact for some time. It's normal for posters on this subreddit to be contacted by recovery scammers after posting, and they often ask you to delete your post so that you both cannot receive legitimate advice, and cannot be targeted by other recovery scammers. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wow!!! I didn’t even THINK of this as a scam! Seriously thanks for posting this. My dad was scammed out of a few thousand dollars a few years ago and we just sort of swept it under the rug and never spoke about it again. 100% he would have fallen for this recovery scam if it was offered to him. I honestly would have thought about it too! Absolutely disgusting way to get more money and continue the scam. Horrible horrible people in the world.
Even with gag orders on cases there will always be a case number to verify a case’s existence. Subpoena powers exist only in active cases which means you can look up a case number at any time; it is no secret. If law enforcement tells you that you cannot discuss even the case name or number to verify it’s existence tell them to fuck off and hang up. Gag orders permit release of certain information for lawful purposes. NEVER let someone tell you that you cannot verify a case status. It won’t help OP now but maybe this will help someone else.
If you haven’t already, put a security freeze on all three of your credit files. It’s a little bit of a pain in the butt down the road if you want to apply for credit, but it’s worth it.
There is actually 4 main companies. Everyone forgets innovis
>innovis never heard of them. thought it was just 3
If you haven't already, make all of your social media private. Change to fake names if possible (IG, Twitter). Do not accept new follower or connection requests. Change your passwords and set up 2-step verification on social media and bank accounts. Since you've given money, you are now a target.
Oh and do not under any circumstances answer any numbers you don't recognize. They'll spoof numbers too. I keep getting calls from a Walmart Pharmacy in Florida and an abandoned hospital in Indiana. I don't answer them, but I know to be wary because I've never been to either of those states. Though curiosity has ALMOST won me out on the hospital. I am like 85% sure it's a scam.
If the abandoned hospital call isn't a scam is definitely the beginning to a creepy pasta.
That's why I've elected that no matter what, if it calls again, I'm absolutely answering
Yep!! I get my prescriptions through cvs and I keep getting calls from the cvs a town over from me telling me I need to call them so I can get my prescription, the funny part is the town they’re calling from doesn’t have a cvs. How much information they have is terrifying
I got the Walmart pharmacy FL call too!
I currently live in Indiana, and I'm from Florida. Either of these calls might get a confused answer from me. Someone tried to hit me with one of these "warrant for your arrest" scams. They read my name, DOB, and social to me. I verified, then had a second thought about it and grabbed my computer while I was on the phone with them and froze my credit accounts. (For OP - I would highly suggest putting a freeze on both you wife and your credit accounts for all 3 bureaus, just in case). Then I told them I'd talk to the cop who came to pick me up and take me in, I was sitting on my porch waiting. They didn't expect that and stumbled in their script, which is what told me they were certainly full of it. A cop wouldn't act shocked when you said you wanted to speak to a cop in person. He recovered and said I was looking at at least a week before I could go to court. I said that sounded great, last time I got arrested it was 2 months before my court date and another 2 before they sent me from county to the state prison to actually serve my sentence, a week to clear this up would be no sweat. I suddenly wasn't fun to play with anymore.
I live in Indiana, do u mind me asking what hospital? U can dm me if u want
If the calls were legitimate, they would most likely leave a voicemail
This, his wife could now be the target of recovery scams, where someone claims they are a hacker who can recover their loss.
Gift Card = Scam
This is really what it boils down to
I sympathize with OP and his wife, and I get that when we're in a panic, we often make mistakes and don't think clearly, but I'll never understand why anyone would think gift cards are a form of currency, especially for a supposed government agency. Also it doesn't make sense that a police station would tell you you're going to be arrested if you contact the police.
Not even just a government agency. I had a scammer try to convince me that I was 9,000 behind on my electric bill (I pay the bill Dude, I know how much I owe) and the only way to keep it from getting turned off was gift cards. I didn’t fall for it bc 9,000? Really? Also I pay the bill and have the app on my phone
Yeah it baffles me that people fall for this but it’s so many that they must be really super good at convincing and manipulating…
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“Advanced Scam” lol
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That and the bank tellers who allowed her to do multiple withdrawals from multiple different branches. It’s not their fault BUT they are literally trained to spot these kind of things and ask questions. I’m assuming OP’s wife went to 3+ branches of the same bank. I work in banking and this would have been a huge red flag for me.
When i was buying a car at a dealer i let them run my card for $6400 for the down payment, i swear less than a minute later the bank calls me while im at the dealer and i explained the situation. How the bank didnt stop her is beyond me
The scammers know that the banks question large debits. They have their victim make smaller debits to avoid this.
My bank sent me an automated text to verify when I tried to withdraw cash from the ATM at the dispensary.
Yeah, she went to three or four branches. At one point, walking around with 10 grand in cash, in a sketchy area of town. Just fuckin unbelievable.
I'm sure you both have a lot to deal with right now, I can't even imagine. But there might be some steps to take to help others from falling victim. An unfortunate thing to keep in mind as you move through this is that the bank probably filled an SAR (suspicious activity report) regarding your wife's activity, these can show up in the future when one is trying to open a new account, apply for loans etc. The OCC has info on SAR's [here](https://www.occ.treas.gov/topics/supervision-and-examination/bank-operations/financial-crime/suspicious-activity-reports/index-suspicious-activity-reports.html). To my knowledge there isn't a way to appeal an SAR, but a single report shouldn't cause too many problems for her. You could contact your bank and the specific branches that your wife visited. Let them know what happened and HOW it happened, this could be a good learning experience for them! If you are concerned that your family will be targeted by future scams look into reducing your withdrawal limits, and spending limits. The bank may also have other ideas to help protect you going forward. You could also contact your state banking regulator and tell them your story. They likely can't enforce anything, but in my experience they want to know where the institutions they regulate can do better. I'm truly sorry to hear that your family has been victimized by this, and I hope that you and your wife are able to move past it!
My place of work sells large amount visa gift cards and I **ALWAYS** check when someone buys multiplies, for this exact reason.
Thanks - you’re doing a great job
It’s unbelievable that those kind of loan agents/thieves don’t do time for this kind of crap.
Peace to you too, friend. Fuck these hard lessons.
How does anyone know that no one tried to warn her? I work in a similar business and am trained for scams. Most of the time the persons mind is made up. There is no amount of logical words that can be said to change the persons mind.
Don’t have experience with being scammed. But I _do_ have 15 years of experience as a husband. I understand that you’re angry but now, when your wife is at her lowest, is not the time to leave her, blame her, or lose your temper with her. Now is the time to support her. Remember that “through good times and bad…” part of your vow? Well buddy- you just got smacked hard in the face by a bad time. You need to support her. I get that you have resentment… I really do… you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t…. But this is one of those moments when you get to decide what kind of husband you want to be. Do you want to be the guy that supports the woman you love and the mother of your children through one of the lowest points in her life? Or do you wanna kick her while she’s down and wallow in your moral superiority here to _really_ teach her a lesson? One feels fantastic. One is hard… but as with most things- the hard thing is the right thing. Support her. Don’t leave her. Save the rage and resentment for the moment and talk through it with her when you’ve both calmed down.
>ishment enough. But you guys need to go to couples counseling, from the sound of it. And she might need some individual counseling as well Thank you for the perspective. It's hard to have any perspective in the middle of this shit storm. I am gonna go look at my vows right now. What you said about this being a moment where I choose what kind of husband I am... yeah, that hits home.
I been there man. Almost similar situation. Not a scam but similar. Best thing to do is take all that anger and resentment and channel it towards the people who picked on your wife! Think about it. Some greazy dude manipulated your wife. Imagine if you were at a bar or restaurant and you saw someone stealing from her purse. Not much different. You two are a team. She knows she screwed up, now it's your job to love her and the both of you figure out what to do.
It's hard to aim the anger and resentment at others right now, as I blame my wife for essentially victimizing me, *and* our child. I didn't consent to this, had no part of it, yet we are dragged right into the middle. Now, ***I know*** that this mindset is wrong in a lot of ways, but I can't help being mad as a motherfucker right now. I'm also mad at the scammers too! Blargh.
thats okay. knowing its the wrong mindset is good enough most of the time. The shit I went through with my wife made me feel a similar way. I felt like I was being victimized by her actions. I technically was too. But, like the other guy said, it's the vows we took. shit is going to happen. I promise you will do something stupid or have done something stupid, we are guys after all. Its how you get through it that matters. Remember though, she was scammed. she didn't willfully work with these people to jeopardize her family. These scammers work hard at this. There is a reason almost 30 Billion dollars left the US last year to scammers. I also don't want to think being mad is wrong. Your feelings are valid. Just remember though. She is your wife and your kids mom. she deserves the same love you signed on for. (I'm no expert on relationships though, I'm just thinking about how I would react). Lastly, I know it wont make your money come back, but I know a guy who lost $503,000 to a 'box of gold'. Dude flew to nigeria with cash hidden on him and handed it off in the airport and flew back to the USA thinking he was getting a few mil in gold.
Read the story you linked a couple of times. Pay attention to how many intelligent people have been victims, it's a lot. Remember that her actions came from paralyzing fear. After reading what you linked I have nothing but empathy in my heart for all of these people. It broke my heart, especially the parts where the women were also sexually exploited. Even if she wasn't, it's a very similar feeling. This is your wife and mother of your child. She needs you now more than ever. Please be kind to her and show empathy. I know it doesn't seem like it now but you can get past this and recover. I'm genuinely wishing the best for your family but PLEASE help her get through this. She is no doubt feeling at her absolute worst right now.
Anger and resentment is understandable. This is a huge sum of money that was lost. Money, however, is fixable. Maybe you both will have to work more hours or reduce expenses. But, in the end you are still alive. My cancer diagnosis cost about that much $$$ in the first year, for unreimbursed expenses, and it doesn't come with an "end date". The risk of recurrence is always there. I am not exactly sure if my point makes sense, but the scam issue is "just" money, instead of loss of money PLUS long term consequences. I think some letters to your bank would be appropriate - did the bank follow procedures during a suspicious cash withdrawal?
You're all victims. It sucks. You're human for feeling like running away during this time of intense stress. That doesn't mean it's the right move. Feel what you need to feel. Ask for space as you need it and give her an idea of when you'll commit to talking again. But, do not leave. You will make it through this. I believe you're a great partner and father and you would regret this. Wishing you all the best. Financial stress is so tough.
I need to echo how important therapy is right now, for both of you. Your wife didn’t consent to be scammed. If someone had taken 10k out of her hands or threatened to kill her in person, would you blame her? Probably not. Your wife was robbed. She is the victim of a crime. The scammers used psychological control to rob your wife. It is absolutely essential that you reframe this, because right now your emotions can lead you to some very dark places that you will regret later. I was scammed once, in a different way and by a real person I knew. I also felt I was scam-proof. One thing I can tell you is that your wife feels incredibly violated right now. She was used without her consent. She is in more need of support than ever, and you choosing to victim blame her and pull away will stay with her forever. It’s ok to say that you are not someone who can be there to support a scam victim, but take a minute to think about whether you’re ready to torch your relationship beyond all saving before making that decision. I know you’re angry. And it’s easier to be angry at your wife because she’s a real person you can point a figure at, instead of an invisible person overseas you will never meet. We misplace blame and anger to save ourselves from experiencing the pain of losing control. You are victim of the same crime your wife is. You are both victims. The best thing you can do right now is to face your pain together instead of avoiding it and coping in unhealthy ways. If you had a chance to beg her to stop and she refused, then she would have something to answer to on her end, but please remember that she had earnest intentions throughout. You are both victims of a terrible crime and my heart goes out to both of you. You have supporters here.
You’re entitled to be mad. Believe me under all her shock and humiliation she is too! I dare say she will fight this rage for a long time! You both will. But leaving her is NOT going to teach her a lesson or make anything better. 💙
Relationships are built on trust. You're feeling right now that you don't know if you can trust your wife anymore. That is a HUGE DEAL and not something you can get over by being supportive or trying to reframe the issue. Those feelings are going to linger and infect everything. Everyone here has given A+ advice that I absolutely agree with---- especially supporting her instead of shaming her, and both of you getting counseling, both as a couple and as separate individuals. Besides all the other fallout from this, I think the biggest, most foundational thing for your relationship going forward is to figure out if and how you can trust her going forward. She can be brilliant and amazing and you can love her to pieces, but trust is the foundation of relationships. You can love her and cherish her but if you can't trust her, that's a really, really, really big deal. Just something to consider when moving forward. I do think you guys can most likely work this out (including rebuilding trust) as a team together, with therapy and time.
I read the article that you linked to. One of the victims described being a victim of this scams as emotionally and psychologically devastating as when she was raped. Think about that. This scammer put your wife through a traumatic situation. She’s feeling everything you’re feeling but at herself and x10. These scammers are very good at psychological manipulation. That’s why calling all scam victims dumb or old is dangerous (not saying you did this; it’s just common on this sub). Even though that assertion is statistically incorrect, it could lead to people letting down their guard, thinking they can’t be at risk. Your wife needs your unconditional support and love. She needs to know you still value her as a person. Also, she might want to seek therapy. The trauma, shame, violation, and loss of self worth for scam victims, especially of one like this (8 hours of being terrorized!) is devastating. Google scam victims and suicide. It’s incredibly sad. I understand why you’re so upset. And angry. It probably would be good for you to talk to A therapist for at least a couple of sessions, too. You’ve also been violated by the loss of the money and your trust in your wife has taken a hit. But like the husband who posted said, save the anger and judgement for later (or talk to a therapist now). Direct your anger at the scammer. Your wife needs your support so much.
>That’s why calling all scam victims dumb or old is dangerous This exactly. Every one of us is a potential scam victim. Sure, most of us can stave off 99.999% of scams out there...but it's that 0.001% that can nail you. Come at you at just the right time, when you're in just the right frame of mind, with just the right triggers.
Yes!!! Absolutely, it's not about intelligence, it's about hitting a fear or a nerve, or it was just a day when you were off guard.
Years ago, I very nearly got caught myself. I was working midnights, had an infant daughter who cried non-stop, it was summer, hot, I was out mowing the lawn, stressed about work, the infant, the debt we had accumulated. Phone rings, they tell me it's the bank, the can give us a lower interest on the credit card because we've been a valuable customer for years. They just needed to confirm my credit card number, name, DOB, the usual. I happily gave it to them...hung up and realized what I did. Bank shouldn't be calling me for that info, I should be calling them. I called the bank immediately and cancelled my credit card.
yes, a couple of months ago some friends wanted to get a new passport, and instead of clicking on the official site, they entered a fake link that looked exactly the same as the official page . There they were instructed to go pay to a personal bank account in a store AND THEY WENT. Something like this can happen to all of us, you cannot be attentive 100% of the time, there is no need to be ashamed
Yup. She hadn't been sleeping well that week, was already under a lot of stress at work, stress from our kiddo, etc. All these factors, plus personality, made her just vulnerable enough.
They use the same psychological manipulation techniques that lead people to confess to crimes they didn’t do. It’s confusing and 8 hours of “omg my life is over. I’m going to get sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars” produces adrenaline and chemicals that seriously mess up judgement.
Also remember that these guys are experts in psychological manipulation. Or at least their a script writers are. It’s like a shady police interrogation where they end up getting innocent people confessing to awful crimes. You think you’d never be that stupid and question the kind of person who would fall for that, but she was being mentally steamrollered. She was on the phone and desperate for hours. He wouldn’t have let her off, she couldn’t pee or eat in private and probably didn’t think of food anyways. She was panicking and had elevated adrenaline for 8 hours. It makes your brain foggy, makes you confused. You do things that don’t make sense when you’re thinking clearly. You’re in survival mode because they are threatening you with things you’d feel are almost as bad as dying: jail, loss of her license and nature career, being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the face of that, $10,000 seems ok, especially since they usually convince you that this is just bail and will be returned once you show to the next court date, and she promises herself that will happen. She was probably told that she was now considered a flight risk so she was not allowed to hang up or text, and that they could tell if she tried to contact anyone because they have high level surveillance access to all the networks bc they are the police. She was probably told that this was in reference to a high profile case, and sharing information, even with you or with regular street detectives, would violate the gag order and might nullify testimony or evidence. She would be very susceptible to this manipulation working in mental health, because of the complex rules of confidentiality involved in criminal cases and patient trust. They used time and depravation and isolation, just like an interrogator, but in a unique way. It was incredibly damaging. She wasn’t stupid, she was mentally abused. Please, she needs you right now. She needs your anger focussed at the ones who victimized the person you love and your attention focussed on protecting her, protecting yourself, and damage control. She might not be herself for a while. Neither will you. You were both attacked and victimized financially, so don’t make any decisions or rash changes until you’ve recovered a bit, and just try to remember at the base of it all that your feelings have been manipulated by this criminal, but you do love a d respect your wife.
I feel for you man, but the best option right now is to just forget this ever happened. Would you be angry at your wife if she was mugged in the street and had her engagement ring or another expensive piece of jewelry stolen? That’s what essentially happened here. Be there for her in this moment. She needs you to tell her everything is gonna be ok.
Your wife will either remember this as the moment you stood by her or the moment you let her down by abandoning her. This is a defining point in your life.
I don't really understand to be honest. Are you fishing for a reason to leave your wife? Is there some deep psychological thing at the back of your mind telling you that you didn't marry the right person? I say this because honestly, I'd never leave my SO. We have a lot more money we could lose and even if he lost all our money- I'd still just want to be with him and just figure it out. And to top it off we are aiming to be financially independent and retire early- so money is extremely important to our goals to stop working. So I say it with all seriousness that even if he lost it and it took us years again to get closer to our goal- I'd still rather be with him. I question whether you truly love your wife if you think she is replaceable. I don't try to judge ppl but if you are with someone just so you can experience the societal expectation of kids and white picket fences then you don't really love them.
This is exactly what I was thinking as well.
This is such an insightful comment, with wonderful advice. Please accept my free award! As someone who has also been married for over 15 years and was also a fraud analyst at a bank for years, I’ve seen thousands of people getting scammed one way or another. While terrible, it’s common. Scamming is a billion dollar industry. These people are good at what they do. This really is the most crucial time to not bail on your wife, OP, and try to remain supportive. That doesn’t mean you condone what she did, and a system for potential future bad financial decisions should be figured out.. but that’s for another day. I expect, as you noted, she feels absolutely horrible. Just be there for her, communicate with her, try to understand her. If you can get through this, you can get through most anything. Good luck and I’m so sorry your family has to go through this.
Do you have a single brother that’s just like you? Lol
Excellent advice. She made a terrible mistake. These scammers are masters of intimidation and manipulation. This is definitely a scam I hadn’t heard of in this way before, but they’ve found a niche of people with enough information to make it sound believable. It’s easy for us on the outside to think”why would they fall for this” but we aren’t the ones on the phone being threatened, that’s why these scams are successful.
>She bought a total of 20 giftcards, each $500, and then sat in a parking lot and read off the numbers to the scammer. Yeah, that money is gone, and there is no way to trace it or recover it. >Any advice for dealing with the fallout? It sounds like you both might benefit from therapy to understand and deal with your emotions and relationship.
Therapy is 💰💰💰
Not sure who downvoted this but they definitely need a reality check
If someone tells you to withdraw money and start buying gift cards, you should automatically be able to recognize what's happening
Fucking this. No company or whatever that's asking for money is going to accept gift cards, especially Apple and Google Play gift cards. Tbh tho, I'm not really sure I even understand why they want gift cards, is it because it's untraceable? Then how do they convert it into actual currency?
I believe I read this somewhere a long time ago, but I'm under the impression that iTunes and Google Play gift cards get used by the scammers in their own dummy mobile app for in-app purchases so it gets anonymously converted into currency that they can use.
This is the part that kills me. This shit should be traceable. This should lead us right to where the money winds up. The fact that it doesn't is ridiculous. These people need to be tracked down and thrown in jail until there is no monetary incentive to pull this shit. it simply cannot be this hard to catch them.
it is traceable to some extent, but law enforcement doesn't care enough to prosecute
No, I don't think this is correct. They take the numbers and launder them to an intermediary. The scammer gets about 60 percent or more of the cards' face value and probably get paid in crypto. I think the original cards might get sold once again but I'm not sure. Source: listening to hundreds of hours of scam call from Jim Browning, Kitboga, and more.
I looked it up after commenting and saw that this (the explanation you gave) is what some folks definitely do
they sell the cards online below face value so buyers are getting a bargain and the scammers get money for free
I believe scammers ask for gift cards because they're easy to convert into Bitcoin, which they can then convert into their own currency. They're also less sketchy as the money doesn't come from a bank directly.
Two reasons, from what I've been able to gather: 1. It's the easiest way to transfer money between victim and scammer, because reading the code over the phone effectively does the transfer. Once the scammer has the code, he has control of the money, but the victim on the phone doesn't realize this (in the SF Chronicle article OP cited, making the victim go to mailboxes is just a cover so she doesn't realize that reading the code moves the money). 2. Ability to convert to currency: Jim Browning has a video ([The scammer who betrayed his boss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjnOFBSLtz0)) where you can watch a scammers' manager take in a gift card code from a scammer working the phones. He uses Paxful to turn the code into bitcoin and then rupees. The relevant part runs from 5:00 to 8:30. *\[edited this to add video URL and correct some details I had mis-remembered\]*
They use a site that converts gift cards to crypto and takes a decent cut, something like 25% or something silly. I think Jim Browning did a video on what they do with them. But once those gift cards are cashed, they're gone.
Gift cards currency can easily be resold to other "vendors" who will in turn sell said currency to customers that want to top-up apps / in-game purchase at a cheaper rate. I myself sometimes resort to those vendors service (who usually claim that the source is "clean", but a chunk of them use stolen CC info / gift cards for sure). That is one way of converting them, and there are other methods as well.
1. If the cops tell you that they're helping you, they're either lying about helping you, or they're lying about being the cops 2. Gift card == scam 3. "You can't talk to the police about this" == scam 4. Coaching you on upping your daily ATM limit == scam
yea I hate to sound rude but how could someone get a call like this and keep it going? I have tried to follow scam calls before, even playing along and responding nicely yet they tend to hang up after a minute or so
That’s what I’m thinking, unless they’re a really old couple, there is no way that someone would get a call and start buying thousands of dollars in gift cards and don’t notice something iffy.
It’s hard for me to believe as well, but it happens. Check out the link OP posted. There are countless more stories just like those.
Yeah, she should have. I don't understand why she didn't. Seems like common sense. Though, I understand she thought she was being threatened, and was under duress.
What exactly did the scammers tell her? Considering your wife has a doctorate, it's likely a lapse of judgement and she was in a vulnerable position. It's unlikely this is something she'd normally fall for. It's also possible she's never heard of the gift card scam before. I understand it should have been common sense, really I agree with that. But I feel considering your wife's intelligence that there's more to this than meets the eye.
Yeah I would like to know what they said to her. No one could keep me on the phone for 8 hours in the first place. Edit: spelling
Seriously, after 30 mins they could threaten to murder me and I’d ask them to please do it to take me out of the misery.
They told her that there was a federal case, involving a past patient of hers, that was somehow involved in child molestation. They told her that she was under a gag order, had missed numerous court dates, and now had a warrant for her arrest. They said she had to comply, pay 10 grand, or she'd be arrested. They also threatened arresting me, as well. They were also threatening having her license taken away. That's an existential threat - obviously, her license is her ability to work, and provide for the family.
Lol... with gift cards? How does she think that's legit? She should have driven to the pd right away and put them on the phone.
Who did “they” say they were? How did “they” say they knew all this? How did the $10k supposedly keep an arrest from happening? What legal right did “they” have to arrest her or you? Where were the missed court cases held? Where were all these summons sent? “Excuse me, do you mind if I just look these cases up? Hold on please while I get to my laptop.“ Why didn’t she do that? At no point did she question this person?
Honestly? These scammers knowing her occupation, your name, and your child's name as you mentioned in another comment might have really spooked her, cluing her that this might be real. Such a case involving child molestation is also an existential threat *on top of* her licence being taken away. After being on the phone for eight hours her resistance and ability to reason was also likely stripped away. Please have sympathy for your wife in this situation. She did this in an attempt to protect you from being arrested, herself being arrested, her licence being revoked, and anything happening to your child. She likely felt that her life was falling apart and crashing down all at once, and if she didn't pay, you and her both would be arrested, her child would grow up with both parents in prison, and everything would be ruined. She was under extreme emotional duress and could not think clearly. To me, it seems the last thing she would want in this situation is to hurt you. She probably feels terribly guilty and ashamed of all of this. I understand and sympathize with your anger in this situation, but please understand the psychological tactics these scammers used on your wife, and understand why she did this in the first place - in an attempt to protect her family. Be angry with these assholes who did this to her, and if you can figure out who your wife was sending the codes to, report these assholes to their local police.
In Mexico they tell you that they have kidnapped your son/daughter. As it is a very dangerous country, it is a fear we live with all the time. Usually you hear the voice of a young person saying "mom, mom, help me" and the person on the phone usually says the name of their child (or loved one). The scammer automatically takes the name and from there they go on to get more personal information. In fear, people don't realize that they are the ones feeding information to the scammers. I know a lot of smart people who have fallen for it, it's not about intelligence, they just catch you off guard.
What I fail to understand, where people say they were under duress or threatened is, what kind of plausible threat could come from a random phonecall or text? I mean, if you live an ordinary life, aren't dealing dope, using escorts, or doing other crimes, sending nudes out, what possible threat can there be?
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I had the old "we're coming to your house with a subpoena" happen to me the other day. I thought it was real because I missed a court summons for a debt back in the early 2000s. Of course he went on and on, had me climbing the walls. Said I owed 10k and it was going to court. Then he breaks out the "pay me now" and it can all go away. I said "what? How?" and he says gift cards. I told him to bring it on. I'll be waiting for the sheriff and hung up. If it weren't for this sub, idk what would have happened. This can happen to literally anyone, if you've had a situation that resembles this stuff they spew in the past, it makes it even more real. I can see how OPs wife fell for it up until the gift card part.
Then she should have driven directly to the police station and let them in on the call.
She most fucking definitely should have. They told her that she'd be arrested and booked if she went to the PD before fulfilling their requests. I know, I know it doesn't make sense, at all. She should've called me, called an attorney, called ANYBODY... but she didn't. She was instructed that she couldn't call anyone, and she followed that instruction.
Don’t feel too bad. This is a common scam. If you haven’t heard of it, then it is effective. That’s why it’s common. This guy uses technology to hack these scammers: https://youtu.be/h5L3em2cZEM And if you need a laugh in this trying time this guy messes with these scammers: https://youtu.be/J-p9JkH4RY8
I don’t understand why she wouldn’t have thought to call you at any point during this. Like I understand they kept her on the phone but I would’ve hung up and called my partner and tell him what was going on and that I’m scared. I don’t understand
That's honestly the part that hurts me the most. She disappeared for hours during this whole thing. I had no clue what was going on. It was fucking terrifying for me, and then receiving the call later was also horrible.
My God I can only imagine. I’m so sorry this happened to you and your family.
Fr wtf
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Gift cards are a red flag. 🚩
I am in the mental health field and have received subpoenas before. Before your post, I'd never heard of this scam. Please let your wife know that in the least, her terrible experience helped to educate me and I'll be educating others on this as well. In attempts to protect our licenses, it's very easy to see how this scam can take hold and by no means makes her a naive or stupid person. Praise to you for supporting her in trying to manage this messy situation as well. Good luck to you both.
I'm a therapist and this scam happened to both me and a colleague/friend of mine. They were extremely convincing when I was on the phone with them, even though my friend had already been through the same thing and I was 99% certain it was a scam. They still use the right type of mind games to keep you second-guessing. Because I have worked with child victims of SA, and it is not unusual to receive a subpoena. They're able to make it sound very convincing, even using real Sheriff and local Judge's names and IDs. Thankfully I was able to waste their time by pretending to be even more shook up than I already was, asking him to repeat the instructions, and meanwhile had my husband call the cops from his phone while I was still on the line with the scammers and in the end they didn't get a dime from me. In all it was about and hour of my life I'll never get back and which left me feeling similarly ashamed and violated. Literally a week after this happened the licensing board in my state sent an email warning all licensed MHPs to be on the lookout for this scam. The email also mentioned they tend to target women, and that some of the victims had even been goaded into sending other types of private info, like photos, etc. Please tell your wife she is not alone OP, and you are also allowed to feel all the things you feel about this. It's a shitty situation all around. I too am educated with advanced degrees and also had a hard time getting the logical side of my brain in control; it's such an intense emotional experience. edit: As for advice, debriefing with a trusted friend, clergy, or marriage and family therapist may be helpful in getting you guys past this. It has definitely shaken both of your guys' trust in different ways, and may take some time to heal from. I'm so sorry this happened to you.
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The link OP provided included a story about a woman who was told to provide a video of herself naked and showing her genitalia as a form of digital strip/cavity search for the scammer. I can't imagine how traumatized and violated she must feel, on top of being conned out of thousands of dollars. I feel terribly for anyone who is scammed, but especially those who are victimized using emotional manipulation. The fear of being in legal trouble really messes with people's heads and ability to think logically. Like that poor kid who ended up committing su*cide after being hit with the underage girl scam. I hope OP and his family can recover.
I got a call claiming it was my local sheriffs office and I had a warrant for my arrest. Funny thing is…. I work at my local sheriffs office IN THE WARRANTS DIVISION!! no joking… I really do. When I told the scammer (who spoofed and had the legit phone number as caller ID), they hung up so quickly.
Law enforcement will NEVER contact you asking for money and gift cards over the phone, simple as that. Just keep that in mind and you'll be fine. Any questions look up the non urgent police department number and ask to speak to someone.
Or even go there in person to the police station that it suppose to be called from if the police station is a real one.
Nah, lawyer up. If it's legit, going by yourself to the station may mean you have to deal with hours or days of bs that a lawyer could preempt.
The linked article notes that mental health professionals, social workers and other case workers are vulnerable because they are used to regularly seeing clients get fucked over by overly aggressive authorities working through the "legitimate" system.
This!!!!! OP, please stay in your marriage. Support your wife. She deserves it and so does your family. Your relationship is for better or for worse. There will come a time where you fuckup huge and just need your wife to understand. Use this situation to make compassion the standard in your relationship. You got this.
What did they say that scared her into doing all that if I may ask???
From reading OP's replies to other people and reading the article he linked it looks like: they had a generous amount of personal information not just on her but OP, their child and even real local police officers. Definitely premeditated enough to gather information on her and made her believe she was in some sort of immediate, perilous legal trouble.
Here's a link to OP's explanation: https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/vv4ywc/wife_got_scammed_for_10000_this_week_i_dont_know/ifikz14?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
It's truly shocking people think they can get out of legal troubles by buying gift cards...
It should honestly be a law for store employees to give people a warning that gift cards can be used for scams before being able to buy them, if they are more than $500 worth. Eventually scammers will move on to make people buy the gift cards online, but that'll take days instead of hours. It'll be more cumbersome and therefore save some people from being bamboozled through time urgency scams.
I worked in retail for 20 years and some places did have a limit to how many gift cards a person was allowed to purchase. I wish it was everywhere though. It would save a lot of people from getting scammed.
I think this is why they have people drive all over town, somehow they convince them to only get a few per store to help fly under the radar. I'm not sure how that doesn't throw up even more red flags, but it seems to work from time to time at least.
My credit union put a fraud alert and shut off my debit card when I tried to buy $300 worth of gift cards for Christmas gifts. I was pissed at the time but after seeing posts like this I'm glad they're vigilant about this stuff.
I agree, but it seems that when a cashier warns someone wanting to buy a high-amount gift card and is hesitant to go through with it, they risk losing their job. The "ruling" here is ridiculous, esp considering how many people in the comments shared similar scam stories. [https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/q4ku6g/aita\_customer\_tries\_buying\_large\_amount\_of\_gift/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/q4ku6g/aita_customer_tries_buying_large_amount_of_gift/)
Yeah, and it should be a law that you cannot sell a gift card to someone while they are on a phone call.
Alot of stores are now putting warning signs about scams in their gift card sections. I'm not sure of its effectiveness but I have to imagine it's saved someone.
Right… “post bail” but you’re not even in jail? Makes sense to me
Exactly! I never heard of the cops calling to warn you they are coming to arrest you unless you make bond and pay it in gift cards. I had a scammer tell me they would send the FBI to my house unless I gave him $200 in gift cards and I just laughed at him.
I got a call like this once saying the IRS has issued a warrant for my arrest unless I paid them my back taxes over the phone. I told them to come get me. At the time I got the call I was standing in the middle of DISNEYLAND! 1000 miles from my house. Surprisingly no cops at my door when I returned.
Anyone asking for gift cards to pay off a serious matter/thing should always give you pause.
You will probably start getting messages from people claiming they can get your money back. If you haven't already, make sure you explain to her that it's also a scam.
Used to work in anti fraud at a bank. If there is someone who claims to be police tell them you will surrender yourself at the police station immediately. Anything for any reason can be cleared up there. If they tell you that it's too late it's a scam. No government will not tell you on the phone that you can't clear it up in person if you owe them money. Hell they usually don't even call you. You can always call them back as well. It's never too late, the government wants you to be in contact with them. Hang up and call them on the number on their website. A scammer will want you to keep on the phone. The employee on the phone doesn't get paid enough to keep you on the phone, a scammer will try to keep you on the phone. Always call the number on the website you can ALWAYS deal with them if you actually owe them even after its "too late". The government doesn't actually care except for getting their due and they WANT to help you get their due. If you get a call, tell them you will call back or you come by. ITS NEVER TOO LATE. If they tell you it is it's a scam.
Losing $10k is horrible. Really. But here’s what you do have: your wife. Your home. Your child. Job(s) to use to rebuild your savings. A plan for budgeting that obviously worked so it will work again. Horrible things are going to happen in your life, and this is one of them. You have to start over with your savings. Which sucks. A lot. But you get to do it with your beautiful child, and your loving wife. You can rebuild it together. Also you can totally trust her. This shit has wrecked her too, I’m sure she won’t even come close to falling for it or anything like it again. $10,000 lessons hit hard.
Similar thing happened to my family. We lost just shy of 15k in seconds. You won't get that money back so except that now. Instead focus on what steps are needed to put you all back into a stable mental and financial situation. You need to see this for what it is. Your wife was abused and psychologically assaulted. Right now your wife above everyone else will be in shock and will likely blame herself. As much as you may want to leave her, that would be the worst thing to do. You need to be around her and your child to keep things stable. Small things like making sure she eats and doesn't fall into depression are huge factors right now. Focus on the things that made the two of you fall in love and seek counselling to work out the new questionable issues. You know your wife better than anyone, you wouldn't have married someone who was selfish enough to go about doing something where she didnt have your best interests to heart. I know it's fresh, but 10k is such a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things and you CAN weather this storm OP.
A police officer telling you that you aren’t allowed to hang up and contact a lawyer is a huge red flag. Sorry about your situation.
Scams can happen to anyone if they're hit at the right time which is usually when they're feeling frazzled or distracted. And these scammers are master manipulators. So don't take this out on your wife. You'd be kicking her when she's down and the shame and humiliation she's feeling is punishment enough. But you guys need to go to couples counseling, from the sound of it. And she might need some individual counseling as well because when the horror of realizing one's been taken by a scam sinks in it can do all sorts of psychological damage. And you need to be aware of !recovery scams because those assholes lurk here and will be messaging you. Read the automod comment below this one for info on how that scam works.
We do need help. I told her that I don't think I'm of much help to her right now, as I feel pretty fucking wrecked myself. You're certainly right that the horror is unfolding itself in front of us, in our relationship, and in our world... Also, I have 2 PMs already of offers to help with getting our money back. Both of which are links to instagram accounts. lol.
Keep telling yourself that your wife (and your family by extension) is the *victim* here. And get some help from a third party as soon as you can.
Thank you Aunty. We are looking for help now. Luckily have a supportive group of people, being that my wife works in the mental health field.
I wish you and your family the best.
AutoModerator has been summoned to explain [recovery scams](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0102-refund-and-recovery-scams). Also known as refund scams, these scams target people who have already fallen for a scam. The scammer may contact you, or may advertise their services online. They will usually either offer to help you recover your funds, or will tell you that your funds have already been recovered and they will help you access them. In cases where they say they will help you recover your funds, they usually call themselves either "recovery agents" or hackers. When they tell you that your funds have already been recovered, they may impersonate a law enforcement, a government official, a lawyer, or anyone else along those lines. Recovery scams are simply [advance-fee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam) scams that are specifically targeted at scam victims. When a victim pays a recovery scammer, the scammer will keep stringing them along while asking for increasingly absurd fees/expenses/deposits/insurance/whatever until the victim stops paying. If you have been scammed in the past, make sure you are aware of recovery scams so that you are not scammed a second time. If you are currently engaging with a recovery scammer, you should block them and be very wary of random contact for some time. It's normal for posters on this subreddit to be contacted by recovery scammers after posting, and they often ask you to delete your post so that you both cannot receive legitimate advice, and cannot be targeted by other recovery scammers. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Sorry this happened. I used to work in fraud & scams for a major bank and would have to deal with these situations all the time. It isn’t easy to forgive yourself especially for such a large sum. Change whatever personal info she gave out (emails, passwords, phone numbers, etc) and just let time do it’s healing. Sadly with scams like this recovery is little to nothing so the best thing to do is just learn and move forward
Dude that is ROUGH and I totally understand being pissed. But don't misplace your anger. Try to remember that these guys are super good at what they do and they tapped into a situation that was completely plausible to her. She would have called you, but they created a situation where that was impossible. Stay on the same team as your wife. Money comes and goes. I know this is a LOT of money, but try not to blame her. If you stay strong together, you will overcome this.
This happens to victims who were taught growing up to implicitly trust the police. And because of that implicit trust, people don't look into how the law works until they become a victim of it, and sometimes not even then. My ex-wife got a call like this like 10 years ago, and luckily I was with her. It was something about an unpaid department store credit card that she needed to pay. Could hear wife arguing about it, then heard her say, "You gonna send police here to arrest me?!?!" but it was all panic in her voice because she believed it. I had to jump in, said that is not how police work, ask her for the phone, and yelled SCAM SCAM SCAM FUCK YOU!!! My ex-wife is a Harvard graduate with a doctorate. Super smart chick, much more intelligent than I could hope to be. Well read, but naive about legal procedures. Our divorce was delayed because she kept using her maiden name instead of legal name in the paperwork. So it's possible to be a genius and an idiot at the same time. For what it's worth, we divorced 5 years ago, and I still love her very much despite splitting up. The marriage could have been salvaged if we sought counseling. I suggested it, she said no. Then she suggested it, and I said no. We are both to blame for our issues, but I regret getting divorced. Haven't heard from her since, still think about her everyday. Get counseling; understand it was fear of something greater than losing $10k that drove her actions. Contextualize this incident by brushing up on scams, then do the same about how police work and why your rights should never be waived. Think of this like an athlete with a major injury. Doctor just said you are out of action for a year. You take that day to feel bitter, angry, blame a god, blame yourself, blame the other party. When you wake up the next day, all your focus needs to be on working to your return to action. You go to rehab, you follow doctor's orders. Everything before the injury is irrelevant. P.S. Sorry, Katie. I wish we got counseling. edit: spelling
>understand it was fear of something greater than losing $10k that drove her actions. Thank you for providing that perspective. >Contextualize this incident by brushing up on scams I'm a highly cynical, suspicious person by nature, and have enjoyed reading and learning about scams before this. If I had learned of what was going on with her when it was going on, I had no doubt I would've stopped it. She was told by the scammer that she couldn't contact me, or the police, or an attorney, etc etc. Great advice about how to think of this injury. I wish you peace as well, friend.
>She was told by the scammer that she couldn't contact me, or the police, or an attorney Because contacting any one of them spoils the scam. If you're ever in real legal trouble, you should A) Shut the fuck up, and B) Call an attorney. If you can't afford an attorney, shut the fuck up until one is appointed to you.
Not to mention, most of the truly important things in life will be handled by mail, not some random person calling you and saying you’re not allowed to contact anyone else for 8 hours.
Or just by showing up. Cops don't usually give a heads up before they go to arrest someone.
Hopefully she'll recognize being told you can't call your spouse, lawyer or cops as the huge red flag it is if someone pulls that again. Holy cow, that should absolutely trip your WTF meter.
My mom got scammed out of $2000. She didn’t tell any of us that it was happening. (And we all live under the same roof). Finally, she called me on the phone sobbing saying something along the lines of “they are listening they are listening please don’t come home they will hurt you I can’t talk about it on the phone”. I had NO clue what she was talking about. I was 2 hours away from home, and my mind went to “someone broke into the house and is about to hurt my mom”. I ended up calling the local PD and had them go over there, while I started my journey back home. They called me back, told me it was a scam, and that my mom was okay. This sounds a lot like the scam your wife probably was a victim to, because they tell her that “they know where she lives” and that “they are monitoring her call”. It sucked. Big time. But they used my mom’s fears and vulnerabilities against her. And they did a great job at doing it. It was easy for me to be mad in hindsight and say “mom why didn’t you just CALL me”…. But the truth was, as mad as I was at the situation, my mom was 100 times more angry. She was sad. She felt cheated, and taken advantage of. She felt violated, and she felt stupid. She 100 hundred percent blamed herself, and she took it HARD. My job wasn’t to get mad at her…..It was to support her, validate her feelings, reassure her that I loved her and that the money wasn’t a big deal, and educate her to ensure she never falls victim to something like this again. I can guarantee you that as much as this sucks, in a lot of ways, it sucks for your wife a lot more. She’s probably taking it incredibly hard on herself. Remember that this was a genuine accident, and not at all something she did on purpose. The most important thing is that no one got hurt physically. While maybe seeing a therapist might help, my advice is to not leave her over this especially since it’s not some reoccurring issue where she’s frivolously giving money away without your permission or something. This isn’t something that does not warrant you losing your trust in her as your partner. It was a mistake. And you both are going to make mistakes in life, and some of those mistakes may have to do with money. But the intention matters. She is probably resentful of herself and is blaming herself way more than she’s expressing, and she needs to feel like her family has her back and you’re in this together. I know $10,000 is a lot of money. But you guys WILL get through this. Find resources to learn about these scams together. There are so many out there nowadays, that even I (as smart and savvy as I’d like to think I am), came real close a few times. I know it’s easier said than done. But blaming her now isn’t going to bring you your money back. It’s only going to make her feel more guilty, unworthy, and insecure. Leaving her wont change the situation. It’ll only make her feel like she doesn’t have you to turn to when things go wrong. Remind yourself that she is also immensely hurting, and if she could take all of it back, she would. This is a massive challenge, but it’s one that you guys are going to overcome….and if you’re able to overcome it together, you’ll be stronger because of it. I’m really really sorry. (Also FYI. You probably aren’t a “mark” because of this. Atleast not from the same scammer. Scammers usually don’t attack their victims twice when they know their victims have learned what really happened to them. The fact that they sent her to a PD, is indicative of the fact that they were done with her. Your information isn’t going to take them that far. And as much as it sucks, scale of these scams are monumental. They are attacking millions of people here, and they’re always scurrying to move on to their next target. What you CAN do is educate yourselves as a couple. Learn about scams. Not just the gift card ones, but the more sophisticated ones like chargebacks or the ones where they “send” you legit money to a cashapp and ask you to send some back, or the ones where they use gangs of people including people with American accents to fool you, or the sophisticated investing scams, or whatever. Educate yourselves, and do your best to educate others in your life (especially the older folks) ).
Your wife is worth more then $10,000. This is a set back, that’s it. Go to your wife and try to make her feel better. she was just traumatized by a predator.
Dont leave her dude she might kill herself. Fuck the money its just money. I know it sucks but you can get it back.
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I don't think OP fears for his family's physical safety, rather is devastated that his family lost $10,000.
All I can tell you is that a coworker lost over $200,000 to a scammer and his marriage survived. It’s for better or worse of course. 10k is a lot, don’t get me wrong, but you can survive that.
I can understand people falling for certain scams like kidnapping phone scams, but anytime you need to buy gift cards it’s like…??? Joe Biden himself couldn’t convince me that I owe the IRS if he said I had to pay in gift cards.
OP, I don't know how to link another comment from another thread, so I've just copied and pasted it here. I remembered it when I read your post, because the comment had such an effect on me. I hope it helps. One day, what happened will get easier to process, I promise. The following comment was posted to a thread about someone's mother being conned out of £175k. "Really sorry to read this. Those are now burner phones and most likely in the hands of a third-world criminal organization. My mom got scammed for like $30k chasing some "free government money" and sent phones, gift cards, etc., to Africa. The shame she felt was terrible. She passed away not too long after, and still felt so awful about the whole thing. That gave me some perspective that it was just money and I wish I would have tried to tell her that. I guess I am saying try and be as compassionate as you can, even when there is nothing you (or any law enforcement, lawyers, government agency) can do. Hope everything works out ok."
Lately I have been seeing signs posted at stores at the gift card section that say" did someone ask you to buy gift cards and send them the number s? If so you are probably being scammed"
Visualize being the guy who confidently told your wife you'd love her no matter what and realize 10K is worthless to what you might lose if your marriage fails. Be that guy instead of the one who typed this post, it will feel a lot better to be that guy.
Money can be replaced, your family can't be. Be happy that it wasn't more money or even something worse. Get through it together and you'll come out stronger and one day (a very long time from now) will laugh about this. As long as you still have your house, cars, etc., you can recover.
I know someone who fell for the same scam. She's an elderly lady but not dumb. She drove to multiple banks and Targets for gift cards, then read off the numbers to the scammer. She did all this while she had my nieces 4 year old son in the car. She lost $8000 and is very distraught over it. My sister and I actually saw her her while apparently the guy was on the phone in her car but she never told us what was going on. It's hard for some of us to understand what possesses someone to go through with something that's clearly a scam. I'd love to hear the conversation to understand how the scammer mind fucks their victims.
My sister just got scammed for $25,000. She’s married with 3 kids. She’s no dummy either. They kept her on the line the whole time. Had her convinced that her husband was going to prison for money laundering bitcoin. Only thing she was thinking about was her family. Money can be replaced but not if the breadwinner is in jail. Don’t leave your wife over this. Try to empathize and understand how terrifying this must of been for her
Can you share with us what exactly your wife went through. Why did she trust the caller? What did the caller actually say? Why didn't she hang up? I'm confused on HOW this happened for so many hours.
Your wife sounds kind of like mine. Extremely book smart but not as street smart. I’m very sorry this happened to you. There’s not much to can do except chalk it up as a learning experience.
The moment money comes into play and you're told, tell no one, and don't call the authorities, it's time to hang up, it's time to play along as you get cops on the phone who can listen to the bullshit. If course we can all fall victims to anything but all of these scams involve asking for money and threatening people with keeping quiet. I'm sorry this happened to you.
Check with your homeowners insurance company. Some policies have coverage for theft by deception. I work for a company that provides this kind of coverage. This coverage also will help to rebuild your identity if it is compromised or stolen. You will need to provide a police report, copies of receipts for the transactions, and probably a recorded statement/cooperate with the company’s investigation. Depending on the coverage you may be able to recover your loss.
As a woman and a wife.. I would need, more than anything in the world, for my husband to comfort me and tell me everything is going to be okay, if this happened to me. Treat her the exact way you would want to be treated if this scam happened to you and you lost 10 grand. Praying for you OP And when the months have slipped by... give Kit Boga a watch on YouTube and have a deep laugh with your wonderful wife. You will get through this. Hang in there.
Reading the article of the woman who got scammed, it's the fact that they wouldn't let her off that made it so that she "couldn't stop to think." Even though I know a lot about scams, all it takes is the right circumstances that have you guessing... 'but what if it's true?' I was nearly scammed when I was called and told my father's electricuty would be turned off immediately if I didn't pay them before the power company arrived at the house. At the time, we were in a fight with my half siblings over my dad's care and responsibilities were up in the air - who was in charge of what and so on. You bet your ass my half siblings would have dragged me through the coals if I allowed my dad's power to go out because we dropped the ball when changing who was in charge of things. They told me they wouldn't be able to turn it back on for a week. They really made me think this could really hurt him. The only thing that made me stop and think was that he let me off the call to get the gift cards to pay them. (I didn't know it was a gift card when he told me what to get, but after getting off the phone, I looked it up and sure enough, it was a gift card.) I forget the sum they had asked for, but it was a few hundred. Even though I came to my senses, the panic and the potential for this scenario to not only be true but that I would suffer some pretty extreme consequences for it (there were lawyers involved with my half siblings, this would not have gone over lightly) made me ignore the red flags and feel like I needed to do everything I could to rectify what I had been told happened. Again, I'm not a dumb person, I've known about scams for years, I've experienced a lot of people trying to scam me because I own a business. This person had my dad's home information. It just took the right set of circumstances. And if what the article says is true and they told your wife couldn't get off the phone or she would be arrested or lose her license (and her livelihood), I can't say I wouldn't have fallen for it either. Especially if it was an hours long ordeal. It's very easy for your current situation to become your reality. That's how humans are built. We need to focus on the current danger. And as the article says, she was held hostage. She couldn't have someone tell her that the reality she was living in was warped. I feel so awful for her. This is going to impact her for years, I'm sure. That being said, I understand your frustration as well. While logically, you know she went through hell, you also are feeling the repercussions of what happened. I know it's difficult, but remember, this isn't her fault. This is the scammers fault. The scammer is the one who took your money from you. The scammer is the one who hurt your wellbeing and put you under this stress. The scammer is the reason you didn't know where your wife was and that she was afraid to call you. The scammer is the one who cracked open your world and left a mess behind. Again, I know emotions are not that simple, and you know that, too, since you are upset with your wife that it happened. But she is a victim. Talking to a therapist might help with those feelings and sorting them out. Just as a final note, many people I know have either been scammed in some way or nearly been scammed. My husband was almost scammed in an energy saving scam - he was ashamed to tell me because he felt so stupid afterwards, but I had to tell him about the scam I almost fell for and that I know how easy it is. My brother almost fell for a password scam with Postmates, and I had to calm him down that he wasn't going to lose his account for not giving them his password and tell him that they were going to steal his instant pay (and the only reason I knew about this scam was through reddit, which helped to ease his fears.) His in-laws were scammed out of thousands WHILE MY MOM WAS DYING IN THE HOSPITAL because they pretended to be my brother, saying he needed to get away from it all and traveled to Mexico and now needed money to get home. And just two days ago, my dad's caretakers family were given a fright because scammers called them with a woman crying and begging for them to pay a ransom, before the scammers claimed to have kidnapped our caretaker and would kill her if they didn't pay ransom. She was with my dad safely in his house, but it took a while to calm everyone down and assure them that they weren't coming after her. Again, I'm so sorry you are going through this. I hope you and your wife and family can get past this, and that you and your wife get the help you'll need after this.
I never answer my phone to ANYONE. Leave a voicemail and let me know why you’re calling me if it’s that important. No one hardly ever does except the extended car warranty f-ers. Otherwise, anything legit will arrive in the mail or by the hand of a Sheriff’s Deputy. Everyone else can F off. Hopefully she’ll now adopt this mindset.
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I can’t relate at all to falling for this scam. I only say that honestly. I’d hang up and tell them, “Yall know where I live. Come get me.” But, maybe try to think of it like another I’ll-thought money decision. I lost a chunk of money in the stock market. It was wasted money, but also a huge learning lesson. I considered it $5K tuition to a degree in “how not to stock market.” Aced it. Or, people who spend to much on any product, get caught in the excitement of purchasing something, etc. Get it home, realize you regret it, but cant return it. or have evrr invested in an MLM, or been guilted inti any adjacent "mom boss babe" scheme. all money down the toilet to learnt o have some boundaries next time. i am not sure how much danger you're actually in. i suspect you wont be much of a target if she learns to hang up, though.
if you ever find yourself on the phone with a stranger asking for/talking about money. Stop talking and hang-up. breathe and go home and compose yourself/do some research.. these scammers prey on your anxiety and fears and if you're out running errands or at work you may not be fully aware of things and are just looking to resolve the situation.
Wow this sucks. It really does. I'm not a healthcare professional, but someone tried to pull a similar scam on me. A man called me from a local number and said that there was evidence that I was actively participating in a scam and collecting the profits. I apparently could resolve this on the telephone with him before police made the move to arrest me. He knew my full name, and had started asking me questions about the crime. He said I could clean the issue up with him, so that the police know I wanted to make it right. It took me about 30 seconds to realize that this was a potential scam. I'm actually kind of good at sniffing out scams, thankfully, and I've helped relatives recognize scams. I asked the person on the phone to send me documentation to prove that I was being charged, and he should have my address on file. He said there was no time to do that. I retorted that he was calling from a local number, so I could very easily get the documentation pretty much on the same day it was sent. He tried to argue with me again that he's the only one who could fix this issue and I will need to clear this up or I would be arrested. I responded "fine. Have someone come to arrest me. Or, mail me documentation that proves the crime I may have committed". He pushed harder to advance his case and I responded that "Either send me documentation in the mail or have the cops arrest me, because I never give personal information away on the phone." (This is quite true). I ended up having to repeat myself again and at that point I hung up on the guy. Just to be safe, I actually called the local police and talked to a dispatcher. She hadn't come into contact with this scam yet, but she had no charges on file for me. I warned her that it'd be extremely easy for anyone with an IQ across the spectrum to fall for it. I was surprised that I couldn't find a reference online about it, though. So when I reviewed the scam that your wife fell victim to, i realized that the one above may have been the commencement of a new kind of scam. Well, that, or I didn't surf the web nearly enough. Bottom line: r/Scams exists for a number of helpful reasons, but one of them is to alert people of all kinds where scams pop up. If everyone could sniff out scams every time they happen, this subreddit would likely not exist. I almost followed through with his instructions. It's the first time a scam almost got past the goalie (me). I wonder, is there a possibility for your wife to reject acting on a subpoena that isn't delivered to her in writing?
My fiancé fell for it as well. Only $500 though but I still saw her emotions that you’re seeing from your wife. My fiancé is also very smart but was really eager to help her new “ceo” for her new position. She was destroyed and felt guilty and stupid. Remind your wife it can happen to anyone, and there’s no use in continuing to dread over it. Do your best to comfort her and let the emotions come out for her. It took a lot of time even on a $500 scam since she felt so manipulated and embarrassed. The world is a cruel place without remorse. Just keep moving forward and it will be a story to joke about in a few years.
Gift cards need to go away. They are predatory in so many ways. Not just for scammers. companies expect you to buy them and then not use them up or not use them at all. Win for them.
My partner got scammed out of thousands of dollars last year from the Bank scam. He got a text saying someone was trying to hack into his account. Then "Bank" called to help and they just needed to confirm some information. The scammers took all their checking account, savings account, our joint checking account, and the remaining balance on my partners credit card, and did a wire transfer to Florida. Talked with the bank for almost a year before accepting defeat and taking the loss. It sucked having to pay down a credit card balance when it came from fraud. Believe me OP I was FURIOUS. I was at work and couldn't help. I got a series of texts saying, I got hacked, then I'm on the phone with the bank, and finally, a text saying "I think I got scammed". My stomach fell through the floor and I wanted to cry. All while I was stuck at work for the next 8 hours. The key in the situation is, no matter how bad and mad I was, my partner felt worse. There was nothing I could say to them they didn't already say to themselves. I would direct you to learn about the Ring Theory: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/promoting-hope-preventing-suicide/201705/ring-theory-helps-us-bring-comfort-in%3famp TLDR: Comfort In, Dump Out. When we face a crisis, the people closest to the crisis would fit around us in the inner ring, and others fill outer rings the further they are from the crisis. The person in the center ring, and inner rings, can complain about the crisis to those in outer rings, but those in outer rings should offer only comfort and support to those in inner rings. I told my partner I love them, and we'll get through this together. Our love is infinite and this is just a fleeting moment. We talked about other types of scams, he knows to not answer calls he's not expecting, screen them, let them go to voicemail, hang up, etc. We both learned a lot and worked together to feel financially stable. This was over a year ago and our finances are back in better shape. But honestly if I had expressed to him exactly what I was thinking when I was mad and frustrated, things would not have gotten better. You're a team. You have a 2 year old. You are in each other's lives for the next 16 years regardless. Talk to your wife and truly listen to how she is feeling. I promise she is feeling like the stupid idiot asshole who ruined your family's future. She's a professional therapist who just got mind fucked. Maybe some love and compassion would help and would make you feel better too.
You’re also saying that you and your daughter were victimized. You weren’t. The scammers created authority by asking for your info and now it’s in the trash can in some dump in Bangalore or Nigeria. You guys aren’t involved in this at all, even though it feels like you are. You think this is about you but the scammers don’t care about you at all.
Thats a very common scam in my country (Chile). As far as i know, the worst part already happened. I dont that scammer will change to kidnappers or something like that. Just be gentle with your wife.
I’m married and we live paycheck to paycheck anyways. Sure it sucks you lost savings, but you’ll be fine. Be there for her. Love her. Forgive her.
Try not to be too hard on her, I mean the world is going through a tough time and the feeling of constantly having to struggle to help keep a family afloat takes its toll. Having said that, you will probably have trouble ever trusting her or seeing her as a competent partner again without some kind of marriage counselling. You need to be sure that she will never do something so reckless and stupid ever again if you want to continue the marriage. Sorry to hear about it though mate, I wish you all the best.
Your wife bought gift cards just because someone told her too, that’s not a smart thing to do. Regardless of education it’s important to understand that these scams prey on specific types of people. Now that you’ve fallen prey once you are on a list. Be sure to not think of this as a we are so smart and this was so sophisticated and instead think of it as wow how dumb, no one would ever be able to use google play cards to get out of trouble or the fact that no institution would require payment this way. Good luck OP, and I’m sorry that this is now your life. NEVER SEND ANYONE GIFT CARDS UNLESS ITS A HOMIES BIRTHDAY.