Marti DeLima

They were strangers.

Some of the scam cases that would come through involved older adults who were approached by scammers in person.

Sometimes they would be pumping gas at the gas station or they would be at the supermarket.

And it was often a young woman who would come up to an older gentleman, say...

Oh, I'm in an abusive relationship.

I'm running away.

Can I get some money?

And then that would just start this predatory relationship where in the end, in some of these cases, the woman would move in to the older adult's home, move them into a back room or get them placed in a nursing home.

It is.

And scams have changed so much since then.

This was in 2013, 2014.

Absolutely.

And then you're safer from prosecution.

If you don't reside in the United States, why spend all of your effort trying to meet people in person?

That's really costly when you can blast out an email to thousands of people.

Some of the cases that we encountered were lottery scams.

And it was almost like no amount of reasoning with the older adult would be enough to safeguard them and have them walk away.

You first get some windfall, some reward.

Often in a lottery, it's money.

But in order to get that money, you have to pay taxes.