351 – Hidden Crimes: Fraud and its Impact on Vulnerable Communities

Debbie Deem joins Dr. Sandie Morgan to discuss how transnational fraud predators are stealing billions from older adults and the intersection between financial crimes and human trafficking.

Debbie Deem

Debbie Deem is a retired FBI victim specialist with over 40 years of experience serving crime victims. She’s currently an elder justice victim advocate, specializing in transnational fraud crimes and she serves as co-facilitator for the National Adult Protective Services Association Fraud Forum. She helped start the Victim Assistance Programs at the US Attorney’s Office in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, where in the early to mid-1990s she discovered what we now call human trafficking victims and was assisting those victims while also working with financial crime victims. After moving to the FBI in 2003, she began focusing on older victims of lottery, sweepstakes, and romance frauds, gravitating toward the most underserved victims throughout her career.

Key Points

Financial fraud against older adults is now the most common crime happening around the world, with $4.9 billion reported stolen from Americans 60 and older in 2024 alone, representing a 33% increase from the previous year.
The Federal Trade Commission estimates that close to $160 billion per year is stolen from all Americans due to fraud crimes, making this a massive underreported crisis.
Language matters when discussing fraud victims – using terms like “defrauded” instead of “scammed” helps maintain victim dignity and reduces blame, similar to how language evolved in human trafficking advocacy.
Common fraud types include romance frauds using stolen military or celebrity images, crypto investment frauds starting with innocent text messages, lottery/sweepstakes frauds, tech support impersonations, and phantom hacking where criminals impersonate bank security.
Victims experience trauma bonds and love bombing similar to human trafficking victims, making it extremely difficult to recognize they’re being manipulated even when red flags are present.
The neuroscience behind financial fraud shows that brain chemistry and excitement responses make these relationships feel authentic to victims, requiring neuropsychologists and medical professionals to help explain what’s happening.
System failures are widespread – in one case study, a victim lost $380,000 but police didn’t respond, banks didn’t file required Adult Protective Services reports, and victim services provided no meaningful support.
Crypto ATMs have become “fraud machines” found in gas stations and small stores, though California now limits transactions to $1,000 per day, causing criminals to evolve to using couriers and other methods.
Prevention strategies include not answering unknown phone calls, getting scam warning apps, sharing personal fraud experiences with family members rather than lecturing, and establishing trusted contacts on all financial accounts.
Revictimization occurs through recovery scams where criminals impersonate law enforcement agencies claiming they can help recover stolen funds, and through tax obligations on money withdrawn from retirement accounts even when it was stolen.
The crime creates long-term devastation including bankruptcy, homelessness, suicide ideation, and forcing elderly victims back into the workforce after losing life savings.
This field is where human trafficking advocacy was 20 years ago – needing widespread recognition, proper terminology, victim services, and systemic responses to address the crisis effectively.

Resources

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast here at Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice in Orange County, California. I’m Dr. Sandy Morgan, and this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Today’s guest represents a powerful intersection of federal law enforcement expertise and passionate victim advocacy.

[00:00:30] Debbie Deem is a retired FBI victim specialist with over 40 years of experience serving crime victims. She’s currently an elder justice victim advocate, specializing. Transnational fraud crimes and she serves as co-facilitator for the National Adult Protective Services Association Fraud Forum. Today we will discover how

[00:01:01] financial fraud predators are, stealing billions from older adults, 4.9 billion in 2024 alone. And why these crimes mirror the early days of human trafficking recognition. Debbie shares real case studies, including a devastating story of a $380,000 theft, and she reveals practical strategies that families can use to protect their loved ones from becoming targets.

[00:01:37] And now here’s our interview.

[00:01:39] Sandie Morgan: Welcome to the ending Human Trafficking Podcast, Debbie Deen.

[00:01:45] Debbie Deem: Thank you

[00:01:45] very much. Looking forward to it.

[00:01:48] Sandie Morgan: I just love that we are having this conversation. I’ve known you for a couple decades

[00:01:55] and you’ve been deeply involved in combating human trafficking from the victim side, and today our conversation is going to talk about how transnational scam predators victimize. Our family members and what we can do about that. So I’m excited to have you on our show today, so Debbie, let’s first talk about how your career in the FBI impacted your understanding of victimization.

[00:02:37] Debbie Deem: Sandy, thank you again for having me. And I have to say that actually it was my first work, I was a victim specialist for the FBI. and I’ve been retired. I call myself unleashed for about the last six years, but even before that position, I helped start, The Victim Assistance Programs at the US Attorney’s Office, both in San Francisco and in Los Angeles.

[00:02:58] And it was actually there in their, actually their early to mid 1990s that I discovered both what we now call human trafficking victims, both in sex trafficking, With a domestic as well as an international trafficking, situation and was assisting those. But I also was required under the victim rights law to start notifying victims of all crimes.

[00:03:20] And that included financial crimes and identity theft, when we had cases that were going forward. So when I first became aware, it was actually both groups of victims that had been. Very underserved. Again, not even names for those crimes at that time. but it, I was obligated to find services that didn’t exist.

[00:03:39] I was obligated to inform them about their rights in the criminal justice system. Um, in some cases, with the traffic victims, they didn’t even speak English. so again, the variety of things, that I found in both situations actually started in the early to mid 1990s. And then when I moved to the FBI, in 2003, I was asked by agents to start visiting victims who, older victims who had been often contacted by phone and just the beginning days of the internet, because they had been defrauded.

[00:04:11] I, I try to use the word defrauded versus scammed. Because it just seems like it, it focuses more on the seriousness of the crime rather than putting any kind of blame on the victim, which oftentimes the word scam does. so what happened is that I was visiting, older victims of lottery or sweepstakes frauds, or the early romance frauds, and I’m seeing so many of these.

[00:04:33] Yet there was no one I could call or contact for help unless identity theft was involved because we did have the Identity Theft Resource Center at that time and there was just nothing out there for these folks. And in my career, I’ve always gravitated towards the most underserved victims, whoever that was.

[00:04:49] And kind of put my focus on that.

[00:04:51] then once people start addressing it, I move on to something else. AndI was able to do that with human trafficking.

[00:04:58] Have a whole bunch of folks came and recognized that crime and great changes happened. So I moved on kind of to these financial fraud victims, especially older adults.

[00:05:08] And I’m still waiting kind of for the army to show up, but, that’s changing and they are showing up now, which is wonderful to be a part of that pioneering effort, that, you know, happened with human trafficking and I’m hopeful will happen with fraud victims.

[00:05:21] Sandie Morgan: Wow. And I really relate to this idea that you saw victims of crimes we didn’t even have names for.

[00:05:31] I often talk to people about my first victim of child sexual exploitation was a 14-year-old boy. I admitted at 2:00 AM before we had names for that crime. And as you grew into this, your. Focus on serving the victims really drove how you addressed it. And we will have links in the show notes, but you’ve written extensively on this. There is a lot of resource, to help us understand. And one of the works that you published is the Neuroscience Behind Financial. Scams A DOJ elder initiative, and this is really helpful for us to understand the science. Can you talk about what that means?

[00:06:36] Debbie Deem: I think you’re talking more about, it was a, a work that I did with Dr. Landy who was a neuropsychologist and he actually, I,

[00:06:44] it was wonderful to partner with him because I think, again, this is a field where we need neuropsychologists, we need therapists, we need legal people, we need financial advisors, we need advocates, we need all kinds of folks.

[00:06:57] But what I think that kind of medical or a psychological perspective can give is some understanding of the human brain and just, What can happen, that excitement kind of thing that if we’re talking about a romance fraud, that excitement, that, that feeling that people get and when they’re in the throes of a new relationship and how real that can seem, even though, all the red flags are there, that this is not a authentic relationship.

[00:07:23] those things can be real. And a lot of the brain chemistry and things like that are so strong in helping people to. Believe that it’s a real thing and it makes it so difficult for them to stop because of that. so I think the work of neuropsychologists in kind of explaining what is going on with the human brain

[00:07:41] As

[00:07:41] well as in later issues with those older folks or people with disabilities that may not stop and what is happening to them.

[00:07:50] We certainly need people in that role that can be doing cognitive assessments.

[00:07:54] Helping with, issues if there does need to be temporary conservatorships or things like that.

[00:08:00] Sandie Morgan: Wow. Okay. So let’s look at what are some of those lesser known emotional or psychological effects that financial fraud can have on older victims?

[00:08:14] And I’m not using scam language.

[00:08:17] I’m learning from you, Debbie.

[00:08:20] Debbie Deem: That’s all right.

[00:08:20] Sandie Morgan: Yes. And, we’re gonna help our community move to conversations that maintain the dignity of the victims.

[00:08:30] Debbie Deem: Yeah. And, and let me address that real kind of quickly. for example, before I discuss what those emotional reactions can be and the, the trauma, the trauma reactions. This is actually probably the most common crime happening around the world. Is these kinds of transnational frauds. and I think that that is becoming true more and more As more and more com countries are doing a better job at getting reports in and kind of looking at the issues and encouraging those who don’t report to come forward.

[00:09:00] the FBI reported that only on reported crimes, and again, we know most people do not report. What they found was that $4.9 billion was reported by those 60 and older who cared

[00:09:11] Sandie Morgan: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You just said 4.9 billion

[00:09:18] with a B.

[00:09:19] Debbie Deem: United States in 2024, even though we know most, and those are just the people that put their age in as being age 60 or older. that was up 33% from the year before. an average of $83,000 was stolen on average. The Federal Trade Commission estimated that the money stolen could be much more.

[00:09:40] And what they estimated that, probably, uh, close to $160 billion a year is stolen by everyone in the United States due to these kinds of fraud crimes. Uh.

[00:09:50] Sandie Morgan: Wow.

[00:09:52] Debbie Deem: So I wanted to mention that quickly, and perhaps also before we get into the emotional reactions, talking about the words, because much as the words that we used in human trafficking cases and that often implied victim blaming and shaming and, you know, why would she do that?

[00:10:08] Why would she fall for that? Why would she go with that man? all those kinds of things that. as activists in the field, we’ve done a pretty good job of helping people understand that these are people that are victimized and they are not responsible for what happened, that they were manipulated into it.

[00:10:25] And we need to do that same kind of, I think, reframing of our language when we’re talking about these crimes because. Oftentimes the reason victims feel ashamed or feel like they’re to blame is because of the language they use. How could you have been duped for that? How could you be so stupid? how are, why are you so greedy?

[00:10:43] those kind of words can really cut deep. to people going through something like this, and even the words that we used to talk about, the criminals, these are con artists, they’re con men. They’re, fraudsters. There’s, you know, scammers instead of being the fraud predators that we know they are. So again, I think changing that language can be so important.

[00:11:05] And helping to reframe the issue and to see that these are crime victims and these were are crimes that are being committed against them and often being re-victimized in it too. So I kind of wanted to get that in before we go into the reactions, but the normal kind of reactions because it always depends on the kind of.

[00:11:21] Transnational fraud crime that we’re talking about. But it’s, often again that sense of blame and shame, not wanting to report isolating themselves from others. Depression is very, very strong. The sense of distrust and betrayal, in almost every one of these where it’s been kind of a long con or they built trust, in the person that is defrauding them.

[00:11:44] there’s this strong emotional attachment to them. you know, we talk about the trauma bond when we’re talking about victims again in trafficking, that same trauma bond appears and love bombing in the cases of romances. Kinds of frauds. Those same Kind of hooks into people are what these predators are doing to the victims.

[00:12:02] So all these kinds of things, that sense of betrayal when they realize that it wasn’t real. Having to grieve a relationship that doesn’t exist, in everybody else’s eyes, but is so real and authentic to that victims, are some of the common things that we see with people. And, and that sense of being revictimized, because there’s, what are we doing to fill that hole that, that.

[00:12:22] relationship

[00:12:23] or that sense of intimacy that, that, that that relationship presented for them. Whether it’s that chance to win the publisher’s clearing house, or whether it’s chance to, by investing in this big crypto investment fraud, investment opportunity through crypto, that’s gonna make all their dreams come true.

[00:12:40] Pay for their grandchild’s operation or college, all these things they’re gonna do with that money. when all of that collapses or someone comes along and says they’re gonna help ’em recover their money. They’re, they’re so willing to believe that that’s gonna be possible, that they get, you know, re-victimized.

[00:12:57] Sandie Morgan: So this, this progression of victimization and then revictimization. So let’s

[00:13:06] start, um, someone who’s gonna help them get their money back. And

[00:13:11] it’s just the next level in the fraud,

[00:13:16] right?

[00:13:16] Debbie Deem: And a big part of this is impersonations because, you know, what they might do is impersonate the bank. They might impersonate the FBI or Homeland Security, or Interpol or the United Nations. I’ve had, people say that they’re investigators from all of those, and that they’re going to, or the Federal Trade Commission or whatever agency it is, local police, and they’re gonna help that person recover their funds.

[00:13:39] Sandie Morgan: And so here’s the rest of us telling them this isn’t real. And yet there’s this authority figure telling them it is real and we’re gonna help you and we’re gonna make everything right. And of course, it’s very easy to wanna believe that Okay, so let’s start step one. I am your victim and this is your first contact with me. how do you begin that conversation to help me understand? That I’m not stupid. I’m not, to blame for this. And what are my resources? What can I do

[00:14:21] Debbie Deem: Well first, let’s talk about the, the main kinds of these transnational frauds, kind of what’s done first, because what I’m going to respond at might depend on what the crime is. And

[00:14:31] unlike, human trafficking and sexual assaults and all these kind of crimes, they basically follow.

[00:14:38] The same basic scenario, you know,they can be remote or they can be in real life. It can be someone, you know, it can be a stranger. With these kind of fraud crimes, the opportunities to defraud are limitless. one of the main sayings that we say now is that anybody can be defrauded. You’ll hear anybody can be scammed.

[00:14:56] I see people all the time shaking their head and saying, no, not me. I’m too smart for that. but we know that it can happen to anyone. there’s a New York Times story about a financial crime reporter, in her fifties that had over, I think $50,000 stolen. And at one point she thought she was helping the CIA,

[00:15:14] in a.

[00:15:15] Transfer Amazon scam. So, um, again, these, these frauds can happen to anyone.

[00:15:20] What we mostly are seeing now, coming again outta the transnational nature of this, is we’re seeing a lot of the, the romance frauds where someone will impersonate, oftentimes they’ll steal an image from someone. if it’s for women, oftentimes it’s men In the military, it’s doctors serving time, maybe doing doctors without borders.

[00:15:40] It might be an engineer on an oil rig, of course, which explains why he can’t come and visit. Oftentimes, uh, for both Sexists, it’s a celebrity or a social influencer that they might have met. Just by liking something on a fan page.

[00:15:54] for men, oftentimes it’s these social influencers or pictures stolen from Olin only fans or similar kinds of models that appear to be under 30.

[00:16:04] that kind of thing that they get involved in with emotionally. again, all totally. False relationships. It’s oftentimes also crypto investment frauds that might start with a text message. And that text message might be something flirty, even if you’re married and you might respond and say, sorry, you’ve got the wrong number.

[00:16:22] and then that person will respond and say, well, you seem really interesting. You know, if the text message was about golf, it’ll be, do you play golf? If it was about.

[00:16:29] Go get, get the pet washed at 10 o’clock. do you have a dog? so they’ll kind of try to entice you into keeping that conversation going and that leads to that crime that is sometimes called pig butchering, which I think you’ll discuss in the next podcast.

[00:16:43] but that’s where a basically a lot of the Victor, Victor. Done relationship, um, crypto relationship or romance investment frauds begin also lottery and sweepstake frauds. Those are huge right now as well. where people will impersonate Mega millions or, or, publisher’s clearinghouse and tell that person that they’ve won that major lottery or sweepstakes, but they just have to pay taxes or pay for courier fees or insurance, where we know that it’s actually against the law to request money in advance.

[00:17:12] And that, Anytime anybody is asking you by text or phone or email, whatever means that they want you to pay that money in advance, hang up the phone, disengage, because again, that’s not real. tech support that is probably impacting older adults more than any other kind of crime where someone may impersonate.

[00:17:31] Um, maybe you’ve. You get a buzzer or something, a pop up on your computer screen and it says big issues with your computer, big noises coming on, or maybe you’re looking for some kind of a tech help. Or maybe you get a call from someone that says that they’re Apple or that they’re Microsoft and there’s a problem with your computer.

[00:17:50] oftentimes then you give remote access on one of those remote access devices. Apps that are on your phone or, and you give access to what’s on your computer to supposedly get it fixed. And instead what that fraud Predator is doing is they’re getting access to your bank account, they’re getting access to perhaps other things that you have, on your computer and even taking control of it.

[00:18:12] This has moved into a new kind of fraud because we know that criminals are constantly evolving. It’s a crime that’s called sometimes phantom hacking, or also the term used might be a, a bank, security, imposter fraud, where someone impersonates a bank employee, uh, security person and tells you, they might say, uh, Dr.

[00:18:33] Sandy, it looks like that your account is being compromised. They may contact you over the phone.

[00:18:38] you know, I’m, I’m Debbie with, with. Blank bank and I’m letting you know that there’s a problem with your bank account. it looks like hackers are into your account. In, in one case, a victim was told there was 72 hackers accessing the information on that they’d find found child pornography on her account and that she needed to get it removed.

[00:18:59] She was told that she could not trust, the local bank because the FBI was investigating and they were in on it. So what she was required to do was to go to three different branches and pull out all of her life savings that she had in these banks and take that money out and put them into a crypto investment, a crypto ATM.

[00:19:17] And by doing that, it was a hundred dollars bills. This was back before the law changed, which I’ll mention in a minute. She put in a hundred dollars bills for two or three hours at a time. Different eight crypto ATM machines, thinking that she was putting the money in a federally reserved account.

[00:19:32] These fraud criminals had sent her emails with fake letters from the FBI fake letters from Social Security. She talked to somebody who was impersonated the FBI on the phone. All of them told her that this was real. She was in danger, her money was in danger, and she needed to take all these steps to protect it.

[00:19:51] She couldn’t tell anyone at all, that this was going on. this went on for a period of two weeks. In this situation, the last payment, she said, I can’t do this anymore. There was $80,000 left of her life savings. These fraud criminals arranged to get a courier. A younger person, definitely under age 18, showed up within two or three hours, no car in sight.

[00:20:14] Picked up the money that she had in a shoebox, wrapped up in foil with the last four digits of her social security number on the top of the box. Picked up that money. He had asked for a code scan. The fraud criminals had said, we’ll give you this code. only he will know the code. She got the code from him, gave him the money, walked away, and she was out her $380,000 life savings.

[00:20:36] Now, what happened as a result of that and what often happens in these crimes?

[00:20:40] She contacted the police.

[00:20:42] The

[00:20:42] police didn’t even come out to take a report. The police did not come out and check ring doorbells because to me, this is possible human trafficking. If a child’s involved, who knows what’s going on with that, with that youth.

[00:20:54] the police never came out. She, I made an attempt to reach victim services in that county. No response from them as far as having an advocate come out when the bank was, the, the bank never filed an a PS report. this is a standard thing they should have done with her taking out that amount of money

[00:21:11] Sandie Morgan: what’s an a PS? What’s an

[00:21:13] Debbie Deem: Adult Protective Services and in the state of California and in most states, these are reportable crimes and banks are what they call mandated reporters. I think in 49 states where they are mandated to report any kind of fraud or exploitation involving a senior or somebody with serious disabilities to adult protective services, it’s almost like Child Protective Services,

[00:21:35] but they do the same kind of investigations and hopefully services and, and information.

[00:21:40] For someone victimized in this or any kind of exploitation, fraud, they did not even file that report. And to top it off, you know, the banks of course did, did nothing. And Adult Protective Services, when they did come out, just checked to make sure she had food in a refrigerator. And basically asked, you know, well, do you have enough money to live on?

[00:22:02] So this is, and I I mentioned this case because it’s so typical of the experience that these victims go through, there is no reporting of it. there was no one telling her that she should also have reported. To a, a national database such as the Internet Crime Complaint Center or the Federal Trade Commission.

[00:22:19] We can talk about that later. so this is just that. I use that example because it’s such a good one about the failure of our system responses no matter what the crime is.

[00:22:29] Sandie Morgan: Okay,

[00:22:29] so.

[00:22:30] let me go back and ask for a little clarification. First of all, what is a crypto ATM,

[00:22:38] Debbie Deem: Crypto ATM, and I’m glad you mentioned that. they’re found all over the United States now, actually worldwide, and you probably can walk by, 10 of them within a two mile radius of your home and not even know they’re there. They’re often in like little delis or gas stations or smoke shops or uh, liquor stores.

[00:22:57] and you might walk right by them thinking that it’s just a regular ATM. But what it is, it’s, it’s actually a fraud machine because I’ve heard people, experts say that there’s really. No real reason to be using one of those unless it’s for fraud. so states are now involved in an effort to limit at least the amount that’s done.

[00:23:14] Some countries are, have actually banned them, but they’re often, it’s, what it means is you can put the money into that crypto h. And it goes into some kind of a crypto exchange, where that criminal, that can, can then, or that person receiving it if it’s for honest reasons, although I don’t know what that would be.

[00:23:32] but that person receiving it then can take that money and it makes it very difficult to trace. And I think Erin will probably go into more details on that. But what happened in California? Luckily is back in 2023, our state legislator changed our laws so that these crypto ATMs now can only, are only authorized to allow up to $1,000 a day per machine.

[00:23:56] Sandie Morgan: Okay,

[00:23:57] Debbie Deem: So that has limited what happened to the woman I just described happened in like November of 2023. If that was later, she would’ve been limited to only 1000 rather than the 300,000 that she put in over a period of time.

[00:24:11] but other states have not done that yet, so.

[00:24:13] as a result of passing that law.

[00:24:14] Because the law of unattended consequences in California, once the criminals realized that, money could not go through the crypto ATMs, they did two things. Number one, they got in touch with gangs and other people to be couriers to come out and pick up the money. In cash or in gold bars or one of these kind of ways, and there’s actually internet crime complaint center, FBI warnings that this is a common means now that’s being used or these cism moves to move to things like QR codes or just

[00:24:44] Cash app and some of these peer-to-peer kind of payments involving crypto to bypass those ATMs. So the criminals are always evolving onto the next stage. When we put in protections, they’ll move on and find some new way using technology to, to defraud.

[00:24:59] Sandie Morgan: oh my goodness, this is so scary. okay, so let me go back. This is a great case study and the fact that this is 2025, that was 2023, that is not that long ago. And to understand how far behind we are in the having protocols and prevention strategies laid out, this is significant. So four. A victim that is contacted through a text message, through a dm, a direct message on their social media, what can we say to people about how to prevent that from happening? Your, let’s say your great aunt Isabel. Is lonely and you go see her once a month. telling her not to engage with strangers is kind of like saying that to your 14-year-old who thinks I can take care of myself? Is this the same, basic scenario that we’re dealing with, with keeping our kids safe?

[00:26:17] Debbie Deem: It is. And, uh, before I, I wanna preface that, that first though, because we said these are, these frauds can impact anyone of any age. so they, the, these criminals would target the fraud depending on that age. So if you were one of those very young adults, uh.

[00:26:30] Sandie Morgan: or

[00:26:31] Debbie Deem: So maybe someone in their twenties, you’re gonna target them with, with job scams, you’re gonna target them with things like crimes leading to sextortion with the images of, the romantic interest.

[00:26:42] It’s gonna be like, products that you can buy online that aren’t real with the older adults. It’s the kind of crimes that I described and, and what we have to try to get those folks to do is, again, not to respond to, any phone call that they get. the FTC said that the fraud phone was still used in like 72% of frauds up until a, a couple years ago.

[00:27:04] So again, it’s not picking up that phone. Unless you, those people are in your contacts and it’s helping to train people to do that, but it’s also getting the apps, through Verizon or whatever the service carrier is that can do scam warnings and let people know that that’s a potential scam and people will be much more likely not to take that call if it says scam likely.

[00:27:24] So helping them to hook up with that kind of technology that can help with those things. I think also for any age, I think. It might be, if I was talking to my great aunt, I might say, gee, great Aunt Sarah. I had one of these strange messages, and it was about a toll road telling me that I had a fine, that I had to pay.

[00:27:44] Well, I don’t even have toll roads around where I live. You know, I, I read about these kinds of frauds and I think that’s what happening, or I got this strange message saying that my FedEx package hadn’t arrived yet, and I had to hit a link on and, and.

[00:27:58] Personalize it that way from their own experience so that they’re sharing that information, but it’s not seen as a warning or a lecture on what not to do or that kind of thing.

[00:28:07] It’s more sharing of information in a kind and general way and saying, yeah, Sarah, you know, let me know if this ever happens to you two. I wanna know, I’m trying to tell everybody I know about this and I think Aunt Sarah will be much more likely to listen if she not feels she’s not being lectured at or treated differently because she’s older and may not be.

[00:28:25] as

[00:28:25] responsible or understanding of that fraud that’s happening. so I think that would be one suggestion that I would have. doing things like freezing credit, we always mention, you know, freezing your credit, if I had an Aunt Sarah and I was her only living relative, I would try to be a trusted contact.

[00:28:42] that’s something we’ve encouraged.

[00:28:44] Um,

[00:28:44] many states are following up with that. And what that means is that on any retirement account. Or any banking account, I would ask Aunt Sarah to make me her trusted contact. even if she wasn’t ready to give me something like Power of attorney, trusted contact would mean that the bank could be authorized to contact me.

[00:29:03] If Aunt Sarah starts doing anything like this poor woman did that was taking all of her money out at one or two days over a short period of time, that’s out of the ordinary of her normal pattern. and that way I could be contacted. I don’t have access to what’s in her account. but it would allow the banks to contact me without that threat of being sued by Aunt Sarah.

[00:29:23] If they did try to reach out to me, knowing that I might be that Aunt Sarah might be in danger. And we encourage this for all family members to try to do. I try to get trusted contacts on anybody because something could happen at any age. So it’s always good to have someone that you could call real quickly.

[00:29:39] I have another situation of a woman. multimillion dollars stolen on a similar kind of crime. These are called phantom hacking, or again, the bank security impersonation fraud. In her case, it started as a tech support where

[00:29:52] there was a problem with her computer. It led to the same kind of issues. Over a period of, a couple months, she ended up believing she was working again with the FBI and other agencies.

[00:30:03] Took out life savings, took out all of her money to, so in these, to the so-called protected accounts, picked up by couriers, she purchased gold bars. All of this money went. And it wasn’t until her son was notified on one final account where he was listed as a trusted contact, and it finally gave that retirement account the ability to check in with her and say, Hey mom, what’s going on?

[00:30:28] And she of course, confessed everything that she had been involved with. But that was. Several million dollars too late. And this is a woman in her seventies that now has to go back to work.

[00:30:39] Sandie Morgan: Wow.

[00:30:39] Debbie Deem: so these are the stories we’re seeing. Um, we’re seeing suicides, people that are, suicide ideation.

[00:30:45] I’ve known of three people just in my county.

[00:30:48] Are actually, homeless that have one is sleeping in a park right now. Another was living in his car,

[00:30:54] for a long, long time until he got into a shelter. So again, the impact of these crimes are horrific. People end up having to go to bankruptcy. tax issues we did not mention, but that’s had this, I call these crimes, the crimes that keep taking because there can be tax issues if you took that money out.

[00:31:12] let’s say Sandy’s a a been involved in one of these frauds. You take your money out of your, your, retirement accounts because you think this great crypto investment is gonna lead to all these great things happening, or you’re taking that money out to help your one true love so that he can come and live with you and he just needs money to help with his business.

[00:31:31] Take that money out and the IRS as well as, many states will tell you that you owe taxes on that money, and that’s money stolen, but you’re still having to be re-victimized by having to pay taxes on that stolen money. that’s not right. There’s been efforts in Congress to get that law changed, hasn’t happened yet.

[00:31:50] there’s so many issues like that. Um, people trying to report things on, on things like social media where you report a fraudulent site and it doesn’t get taken down.

[00:32:00] again, we’re in the beginning stages, right where human trafficking was in the early

[00:32:04] Sandie Morgan: two 20 years ago. That’s right. Yeah. Okay. So I expected our conversation today to be like taking the lid off my trash can and you kind of telling me what’s in this.

[00:32:17] But I feel more like we just dove into a dumpster. First, and

[00:32:23] there is so much more to explore. And for listeners, in a coming episode, we’re going to be talking about the intersection with human trafficking where fraud stirs. are actually being trafficked to man, those phones and those computers in those direct messages, those texts, those phone calls.

[00:32:48] But we’re gonna save that for another episode, Debbie. Tell me what the best resource is for family members that wanna know how to protect their family, particularly those with any kind of issues of that are psychological that might make them more vulnerable, age related. What’s your favorite resource?

[00:33:21] Well,

[00:33:21] Debbie Deem: Well, first I, I would hope everybody would re, you know, get the victim or help, help them, report it to the local police, as well as to the Internet Crime Complaint center@wwwicthree.gov.

[00:33:34] And that’s run by the FBI. It’s a, a national, think of it as a library of complaints. So it doesn’t mean that anyone is gonna act on it.

[00:33:42] They get about 2,500 complaints a day. But it’s a library of complaints so that all of those complaints are seen by any sworn law enforcement officer in the United States, whether it’s a

[00:33:53] detective,

[00:33:53] whether it’s a postal inspector, an FBI agent. In all different places that might be looking for leads on the same case.

[00:34:00] So reporting is is really critical. As soon as you can get the victim to do that, help them save their documentation and all that so that they can do that. But for resources, there are now, and these have only been here for a short time, there’s support groups, tra, there’s national as well as local support groups that are establishing all the time.

[00:34:19] There’s four national ones and actually I can share those with you to put on.

[00:34:23] You’re resource information for people. one of those is fight cybercrime dot org. They have great resources online that covers almost any situation of a, of any kind of internet fraud, as well as action plans, what to do, and following up and a 10 week support group for victims.

[00:34:41] A a RP has a wonderful one for a victim of any kind of fraud

[00:34:44] As

[00:34:44] well as family members. give an hour is another one, and there’s a program out of New York, that is doing similar kind of things. So those support groups may be very important, but I think if I had only one resource, it would probably be the National Elder Fraud Hotline.

[00:34:57] And it’s actually sponsored by Congress and it’s run by the US Department of Justice. And it’s probably the single place that I would, encourage people to go to because they will actually help people file reports. They have advocates online that will help them through the whole process.

[00:35:13] So that would be my one source, that I would probably send people to.

[00:35:16] Sandie Morgan: Debbie deem we are going to keep this conversation going. Thank you so much for your passion, your advocacy, and sharing your knowledge with us today.

[00:35:29] Debbie Deem: Thank you.

[00:35:29] Thanks to Debbie deem for sharing her decades of expertise and helping us understand how transnational fraud crimes are devastating families across America.

[00:35:42] If you have aging relatives, consider having that conversation about becoming their trusted contact on financial accounts. It’s one concrete step you can take today. if you loved this conversation, make sure you check out our website@endinghumantrafficking.org for tons of in-depth show notes and other resources.

[00:36:11] If you’d love to help us grow the podcast, you can start just by sharing this episode with someone and connecting with us on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. I’ll be back in two weeks.