Michelle Singletary
Appearances
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
Her social security number had been used and connected to a drug cartel and that this is a very serious thing and she needed to take care of it. Then proceeded to say that they were referring the call or transferring it to the FBI. Now, all along the way, the caller ID said Rockville Police Department. It said the FBI.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
So she had no reason to believe initially that she wasn't talking to agents of the FBI. Well, of course she wasn't.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
And after about three months of long conversations, they asked this person who was pretending to be a real FBI agent with his resume and everything, persuaded her that she needed to move her money into some sort of government locker to protect it while they were pursuing the criminal case. And at the end of the day, over three months, nearly $600,000 of all of her retirement savings were stolen.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
The first time she was interested in telling her story to help other folks. When you read the series, you'll find her life's work is working in the public service. She was a therapist. She worked with children and dementia patients. I mean, her life was helping other people.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
When this happened to her, when she became a crime victim, she wanted to put the warning out that this could happen to anybody because this is a highly educated woman. She's 79, but all there, I mean, there's no mental incapacity at all. When I met her for the first time, it was really hard for her to share it again.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
Over multiple interviews, going there, spending time with her, spending time with her daughter, she was able to unpack everything. She gave me access to everything, every document, every email, photos of the bundles of money taken from her and drop-offs. She just gave me complete access. And I think she opened up because the questions that I asked, and this is why the series is different.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
At no point did I tell her this red flag. Did you not notice this? Did you not see this? I just said, tell me what happened.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
The caller ID appeared to come from the FBI. And the person impersonated an FBI agent who had been working in the criminal crime area of money laundering and things like that. So when the person told her the agent's name, Wayne A. Jacobs, she looked him up. There's his resume. There's said he worked in Washington. The person had said, oh, I work in Washington.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
All the details panned out when she did online research. She thought, well, this is the agent. And then they sent her documents that looked official. When you microscopically look at it, there's some tell signs. But for example, when the scam was finally revealed to her, it was because a Maryland investigator, fraud investigator said, hey, look at the email address.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
It said WayneAJacobs at USA.com. She said, well, how would I know that? How would I know that it should have said FBI.gov?
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
These are long con games. He was on the phone with her for about three months, twice a day at 9 a.m. in the morning, 6 p.m. at night, talking to her. So initially, there wasn't an ask for money. It was like telling her about the criminal activity, that they were selling drugs to children, that we've been trying to get this drug cartel. And it was a real drug cartel. She looked that up.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
There is a case against them. So they fed her all this information that is real, even though they weren't. That's how they sort of laid the groundwork. So she's telling them about her life. This scam was targeted specifically to her because they had enough information about her that they go, oh, I see that you were a therapist. I see that you worked here. It's all true.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
So who would know that but the government? And that's how they pulled down her guard.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
That's exactly right. And that's where I was hoping that this series was different. Instead of just focusing on the amount of money lost or all the red flags she missed, it was saying she is a crime victim. It is one of the few crimes where we feel it's okay to say, well, why didn't you do this? Or didn't you know that?
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
If someone snatches someone's purse and they're showing up to file a complaint, you don't say, well, why would you hang in a bag on your arm? You know, you should have had it tucked in your coat. I mean, we treat these people as if they willingly one day woke up and said, I want to give a scammer all of my life savings. And it puts them on the defense. It makes them go silent.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
I talked to many victims who have not come forward. They know they're going to face scrutiny. and shame and embarrassment because how we talk to them, how we describe the crime. I just wanted to have empathy for this woman who lost all of her savings because some awful person tricked her, conned her, manipulated her, made her believe something and that she was helping out the government.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
It is clear where her money went up. There were about five banks involved. So all her retirement money was Morgan Stanley. And then when she went to pull it all out, they suspected something was wrong. They eventually, and this is emails that Judith shared with me, not Morgan Stanley, although Morgan Stanley did provide a statement that they tried to warn her.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
But in the end, it's her money and they gave it over to her because it's her money. Then the scammer manipulated and tricked her into taking the money and divided it into four banks in Maryland because they know the system, right? If you pull almost $600,000 out, And then you put it into an account and then try to take it all at once. That's going to send like all kinds of bills.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
And so pulling out $10,000 to $20,000 at a time from those different banks, the scammer was hoping that nobody would notice that they wouldn't say something. And in one of the parts, I talked to a scam victim and a bank manager actually saved her from having more money stolen because he suspected something.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
But instead of saying, ma'am, I think this is a scam, he said, hey, why don't you come into my office? Let's talk about what's going on. Where's the money being sent again? Let me just make sure it's going to be sent to the right address. Then he pulled it up on his computer and showed her that it was an abandoned house. So see how he did that differently?
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
He didn't go, nobody would ask you for that. He said, hey, let's see where the address, let's just double check where the money's being sent. That's a different way. And when he did that and he showed her on the computer, that's when she came out of the ether. And they called the police and they came to the bank branch.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
That's exactly right. You have to lead them. You have to be gentle. You can't be judgmental because they are in this ether and you have to slowly pull them out. Because remember, the scammer has been talking to them every day, week in, week out. You think you're talking to a police, a real agent of the FBI.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
And the agent is saying the whole time, listen, don't tell anybody because this could jeopardize the case. So there was enough nuggets of truth to make it believable.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
Unfortunately, her money's gone. The FBI did get the case. And in fact, she was one of 13 victims with the same scammer using the same agent's information. The amount of money stolen from them was almost $3 million. And they tracked it to a syndicate in India. And that's where it is now. There are investigators in India trying to track it down. But in all likelihood, the money is all gone.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
She was able to get back about $50,000 through the quick thinking of a local investigator. Some of the money was sent in cashier checks. So they were able to track it to California, to a woman who was supposed to pick it up, who herself was a scam victim. And she suspected something and didn't pick up the checks. And they were able to have that money sent back to Judah.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
She's also facing a huge tax bill. Because this was tax-advantaged retirement money, the government, she took a withdrawal. She's getting taxed on it because they just see it as withdrawal. There was a law change, you know, the 2017 tax law change took out the deduction for theft. So many scam victims are facing huge tax bills for retirement money that they no longer have.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
That's correct. Lots of times the money's in cash or gold or things that are not traceable. Oddly enough, they are in some cases able to track it if cryptocurrency was used. But if it's cash or gold bars, the money's gone. And in her case... It's very unlikely. The case is still pending.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
Sometimes if they are able to catch the syndicate and freeze bank accounts and identify victims, some money can be returned, but often not. They never see this money again.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
Each part of the series deconstructs what happened. So part one is about this lovely, kind-hearted woman, Judith. who, when she was 79, got a couple of calls from the Rockville Police Department, which is where she lives in Maryland. The first call, she thought, oh, I don't know what this is. And then they called again.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
It irritates me so because they make it sound like these feeble old people sitting by their phone answering calls for scammers. That's just not how it happens at all. Young adults, I think, is twice as likely to fall for or be victimized in a scam because they're online more, they're searching for jobs, the avenues where the scammers are, young adults are, right?
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
The reason why we see more stories about the elderly population is because they've got the money. They've got big retirement accounts and the scammers know that. So they are targeting them, particularly not because of their age, but because they've got the money. They spent life careers saving up.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
And so the score, if you will, is larger with them than with a young adult who may only have, you know, a couple thousand dollars. And that's why we see the large dollar amounts in the elderly community. So we have to change our language of that. It's not because they're old. It's because they got the money that they are targeting.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
It's going to take efforts from everybody, the police, the technology companies. There's got to be more effort to prevent spoofing of calls so people can't change ID numbers and show that they're from the Rockville Police Department when it really is a call center in India.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
The police need more resources to be able to go out to the communities for fraud prevention, but also put people on these cases because we tell people to file a police report. But that doesn't necessarily mean somebody is going to be assigned to look into that. It just helps the data collection more than anything. And I think in terms of prevention, we have to be as persistent as the scammers.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
For example, in my family group, I regularly send text messages or emails like, hey, this new scam is out, or hey, I got this. Don't click on anything in this because I got something similar to that. So we have to have conversations. We have friend groups or you're meeting for the holidays now. Make this part of the family dinner.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
I know it doesn't sound so festive, but just say, hey, did you read that seven-part series in the Washington Post? Let's talk about that. How would you respond? What can we do to protect each other? I was on another program and one of the hosts said that her and her husband have a code word so that if someone calls pretending to be one of them, they have to tell them the code word. I love that.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
I'm going to actually institute that with my own husband because I tell people the other thing is don't trust anything, no text. email, nothing, just blanket, nobody. I don't believe anybody. If my husband called me, I don't believe you. If he walked in my door right now and said something, I said, baby, I'm going to check that.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
And it's sad that we have to do that, but you have to just say, I don't believe anything. I got a text message from my bank that said my credit card had been compromised. And the text came in under other texts, legitimate texts from my bank. So previous texts, absolutely legitimate. But I said, you know what? I don't know. They might have figured out a way to tap into this. So I called them.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
I said, have you been trying to reach me? And they said, we sure have. Your card has been compromised. And I said, well, I'm sorry I called you. You did send me a text, but I didn't believe it. And so the representative said, that's exactly what you should do. never feel that you are being a burden or anything. Just call and check everything.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
Thank you for having me and for spending the time on this We need to be doing this regularly so that it becomes part of our conversations on a regular basis. And not just when we have these big stories, somebody loses a million or 600,000. I mean, constantly talking about it so that it's in the front part of people's minds and when they get these calls.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Swindled or Safe? Improve Your Scam Awareness and Protect Your Finances
And on her way to drop her husband off for a doctor's appointment, she thought to herself, well, if the police is calling me this much, something's wrong. So she picked it up. And the person said, Rockville Police Department. She told them she'd been getting calls. And they said, let us transfer you to the chief of police. And this person said that she was under investigation for money laundering.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
So this happens a lot. People want, they ask you a question and they really have already reined up their mind. They want you to co-sign on a bad situation. Listen, good advice is good advice no matter what. And people want a microwave answer to a problem that need to be baked in the oven. And so you can't microwave your way away from situations like we're going right now. You just can't.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
We know by history, that's how we look at things. You know, the market eventually returns, historically. Could it change in the future? Sure it can. But we have decades and decades of data that show that when we go into an economic downturn, we come out. It's in everybody's interest that that happens. And you have to feel what you need to feel.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
I will not tell you not to panic when the market goes down. I will not tell you that because it is human to be mad and angry and upset and scared. Be all of those. Just don't make decisions in that moment.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Are you a baby boomer? Yeah. I mean, like many people, I'm stressed to the max. You know, I've got a couple of years or so before I was thinking, OK, maybe I will retire. So I still have about three or four years before I have that serious conversation with myself. My husband, however, is retired and has been since 2023. So we're looking at his retirement account.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
We're looking at my retirement account. He's not as stressed as I am. Because he's always the glasses half full kind of person. I'm not only is the glass half empty, it's like it needs another glass with some water. So I'm very, you know, very concerned because you don't know when the end is near, right? And that's the issue with retirement planning.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
I mean, if we knew when we are going to pass away, if we knew how much health care would we need, if we knew what the housing market would do, we'd be all calm. But it's the unknown. And so I am punching a lot of pillows and crying and screaming and doing a little cussing, but trying to not let the fear grow. dictate moves, and that's the key.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Historically, the markets do return eventually. People come back. The underlying part of America, the economy, is still strong. So it's the fear is how long will it take? And if you have to draw down on your retirement funds, that is what is disconcerting because the balance is lower. And so you are pulling it out at a time where you're definitely going to lock in recent losses.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Then that means there'll be less left to grow even when the market returns. When you are retired and drawing on that, that is the fear that you'll have less. And you'll have less at a time when you need more, like for healthcare.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Well, it's understandable that you're concerned about your parents and also lots of parents. You know, you don't necessarily want to reveal everything, especially if you're feeling bad that you don't have enough money. But I think this is a good opportunity to have open conversations.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Just, you know, like the next time you say, hey, you know, I'd love to talk to you about this because I'm a little worried. You know, I'm saving for retirement and this is what's concerning me. And then you say, how about you? What you don't want to do is like, do you have any money? What's going on? You don't want to come at them in a more adversarial way.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Or as I said, you don't want to come out like you're now the parent. You should see each other as companions and accountability partners and come at them saying, I want to help you if you're concerned because I'm concerned. And so you make it more like you're going to be working at this together.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Because if you find it that they are or they were not ready, that you have to be sure that you have secured your finances so that if you have to step up to help, there are some resources there to help them.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
I think right now in this moment, cash is king. I would be stockpiling cash in a high-yield savings account In case you lose your job, in case the economy really does go into a recession, if it gets worse than it is now. I don't want to panic people, although it's perfectly fine if you're scared because that's just human nature. But I will say the prudent thing right now is to say, don't panic.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
go into any kind of debt or use a lot of cash that you might need if you lose your job. Now, my husband and I are not in that situation, but we did pull back on a major home improvement project that we were going to do just to see how things shake out. That's the kind of conversation you should be having with yourself. But if you're not on a budget right now, you need to get on a budget yesterday.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Yeah, the first thing I would say is don't beat yourself up. You know, you are where you are and accept that, but do something about it. So if you are getting close to retirement, are you about that or a time where you think, then you've got to make some hard decisions. Are you ready to retire? You might say, I wanted to retire at 62. I'm going to retire no matter what.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Well, you can't retire at 62. You don't have enough. Many people work into their late 60s and 70s and 80s. So if that's you, that might be what you have to do. And or you look at your housing situation because aside from some of your other bills, housing is the biggest part of your budget. So you might have to say, you know what?
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Those young adults that was asking me about my money, maybe I have to move in with them or they move in with me. So you got to look at the big ticket items and then you make decisions by that. So let's say you're near retirement, but you can't work anymore. You're not healthy. Then you look at collecting Social Security a little earlier.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Are there resources available for people who don't have as much saved? There's two places I really recommend people to go. First of all, it's AARP. They have a whole section on their website for retiring, retiring in place, long-term care information, how to do your estate planning. And then also your local aging office.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
It has a tremendous amount of resources for those who may not have enough, who have housing insecurity or food insecurity. And then hopefully you're connected to some community group, whether it's through your faith or some other group. Get connected in your community because there are some resources that can help you, but you won't know if you're not connected.