Michelle Singletary
speaker
62 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Apr 2025
Michelle Singletary’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
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.
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.
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.
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.
So she had no reason to believe initially that she wasn't talking to agents of the FBI. Well, of course she wasn't.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
So who would know that but the government? And that's how they pulled down her guard.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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