Vivian Murphy thought back to that heart-stopping moment when the voice on the phone proclaimed her the winner of a $1.5 million sweepstakes prize.
For decades, Murphy, 85, had been a huge fan of Publishers Clearing House, the peddler of magazine subscriptions and household items widely known for TV commercials of winners dissolving into happy tears when presented with a gargantuan check. She entered nearly every drawing in the company's 50-year history, during which lucky winners have received more than $380 million.
Murphy's ship had finally come in. Or so it seemed. She imagined paying off the mortgages of her children and grandchildren and setting up bank accounts for her two little great-grandchildren. Instead, she had been scammed, and her gullibility cost her nearly $28,000.
"How could I have been so dumb to have believed it?" she asked.
The woman who called Murphy is a professional scam artist. ("I'd like to see her in jail," Murphy said.) Many of them call from outside the United States. When I dialed back one of the numbers used to call Murphy, it came up as originating in Kingston, Jamaica.
Murphy, a lifelong Worcester resident and retired nursing supervisor, is among the thousands of people, most of them elderly, who are preyed upon every year by silver-tongued scammers. (Due to the humiliation involved, many victims don't bother reporting such crimes.)
Murphy, with the support of her daughter, said she was willing to share her story because she wants to warn others.
The first thing the caller wanted to know was if Murphy was alone. Then came hearty congratulations. As Murphy absorbed the magnitude of what she was hearing, the woman's voice turned serious: Murphy must keep her big prize confidential, for now, or risk losing it.
The caller introduced herself as Deborah Holland, which is a name Murphy recognized because it appears on lots of the letters she gets from the real Publishers Clearing House. (The scammers routinely pirate such names)
She said matter-of-factly in that first call that there were taxes and fees that needed to be paid before Murphy could collect her winnings. Murphy would have to send a check for $890.60 to begin the process of releasing the $1.5 million sweepstakes prize.
"Holland" spoke in a pleasant, confident voice. Soon, Murphy was "sweetie" and "dearie." Murphy wrote the check. And once the caller had her hooks in, she didn't let go: The next day, it was $3,000, to keep the process moving, and the day after that, $3,890.
A week after her first call, "Holland" called back, first in the morning, for $5,000, and then in the afternoon, for another $5,000.
When Murphy said her checking account was depleted, the caller suggested she tap one of her retirement accounts.
Murphy called her financial adviser to make the transfer.
"What do you need it for?" the adviser asked.
"I can't tell you right now," she replied. "But I'll tell you shortly."
Murphy followed the caller's instructions meticulously. She wrote the checks on her local credit union account (unfortunately, no one there flagged the unusual activity) and made them payable to what turned out to be fictitious employees of Publishers Clearing House.
When Murphy wrote "for PCH" on the memo line of one of the checks, "Holland" told her to leave it blank.
At about this time, an official-looking congratulatory letter arrived at Murphy's house. It included a photocopy of a check made out to Murphy for $1.5 million. The check contained the Publishers Clearing House logo. It looked authentic.
As their chats continued, the caller warmly remarked "what good friends" they had become.
"I can't wait to meet you when I present you with the check," Murphy recalled the caller saying. "We can have coffee and cookies together. It'll be such great fun."
Two weeks after first making contact with Murphy, the caller moved in for another score. This time it would be $10,000. Murphy, clinging to her dream, complied. "Holland" called every day after that, including eight times on April 19, according to Murphy's phone records. What was so urgent? The caller said she needed a check for $20,000.
"She said the IRS required it for taxes," Murphy recalled.
In all, Murphy had written seven checks totaling $47,780.60. But the caller kept postponing the date for delivery of the big prize. The latest date was April 27. Because she thought she needed to be home that day, Murphy canceled a long-scheduled doctor's appointment.
Murphy's daughter had planned to take her to that appointment.
"Why did you cancel?" asked Maureen Sanderson.
"I can't tell you," Murphy replied.
Sanderson could get no further information from her mother on the phone. So she decided to check on her.
That's when Murphy whipped out the letter and revealed she would soon become a millionaire.
"Did you pay them any money?" Sanderson asked.
"Well, yes, I had to pay some fees," Murphy said.
Sanderson took one look at her mother's checkbook and immediately called the credit union to place stop-orders on any check not yet cleared. She managed to block the $20,000 check.
"It took a while to convince my mother this wasn't real, and she's not usually gullible," Sanderson said. "Obviously, they took advantage of her."
The Federal Trade Commission, Publishers Clearing House, the state attorney general's office, and police were all notified. They have traced Murphy's checks to banks in St. Paul and McKinney, Texas.
But no one is optimistic about recovering Murphy's money. Scammers change bank accounts, cellphones, and phone numbers "practically overnight," said Christopher Irving, a vice president at Publishers Clearing House, which has a video on its website warning of scammers.
"People who fall for a scam can lose face, as well as money and confidence," an FTC video says. "That's why it is so important to pass on what you have learned. Sharing what you know can help stop the scammers in their tracks."
If someone wants you to pay to collect a prize, it's a scam. If someone says keep it a secret, don't.
(Click to display full-size in gallery)
Thanks to Bleudog101 for the tip.
Thanks for posting this article Todd...may have beaten you to the punch on this one.
Yesterday a message was received that I allegedly won $250K from/ on Face book. Her grammar was not always correct and said I'd receive an email. Wrote back that this is probably a scam which she did not like. I can't receive emails from FB because somehow my email address is backwards and that way it'll stay!
Thank You, Todd. We do not like to think that there are evil people out there. We have to remember the number of prisons there are in the U.S. and they are not filled with nice guys. Plus the many ex-cons who are on parole.
Don't forget the Nigerian Princes.
Most States want to put new millionaires in front of cameras knowing the risks involved.
Just sad that we have people STILL falling for these same style of scams year after year. "How could I have been so dumb to have believed it".....Well Vivian, you are an educated person and only you know the real reason you fell for it.
l am sorry, but Sanderson needs to own it. Her Mother is gullible, she fell for it & continued to fall for it the moment she wrote her first check. When you in a hole,you STOP digging. I don't know which is worse, situations like this, or lottery winners who lose it all on bad financial decisions & then say " l wish l had never won."
Really wish we would see more active prosecution of these scammers and tougher penalties when convicted, especially the ones in the U.S. Some senior citizens are losing their life savings.
Yes, the first line of defense is for the public to not fall for these scams.
The number of scam phone calls have gotten worse over the last year. When I have some time, I love to take the call and see how long I can keep them on the line and waste their time. The fake Microsoft calls are classics. Sometimes it takes 30 minutes or so before they realize they are wasting their time. My actual time on the phone is usually only a minute or two as I will make up excuses and tell them to wait a minute and then put the phone down, sometimes coming back five or ten minutes later and if they are still there, "apologize" that I forgot about them.
At some point early on they will ask for a credit card, and that will be another opportunity to tell them to hold on while I get my credit card. Five or so minutes later I return (they are usually still there when hope of a credit card is pending). Then the credit card would, unfortunately for the scammer, "accidentally" fall behind the desk and I would ask them to hold on while I moved the desk to get the card. Another five or so minutes and I would come back to the phone and tell the scammer I have got the credit card but I just noticed that it is expired. "Give me a minute to get another card". Rinse and repeat. "Someone is at the door", "my other phone line is ringing", "I need to let the dog out", the excuses to get them to wait are many.
Oh, and when they are waiting, I will put the phone in front of the radio speaker and let them listen to talk radio for a while and get some education
While they are waiting, I am usually getting other work done online or around the house. At least while they are on the phone with me, they aren't scamming someone else during those minutes...
So many elderly don't have anyone to help them, or like her, just gullible. I would hope that someday banks/credit unions would/could take a more active role in these cases. Problems I see they probably don't care enough and more importantly these calls go to home phones and the bank employee can't listen in.
Another scam within the past three weeks the guy wanted to know when I could get him the money. I said I'm waiting for you right now @ Standiford Field (Louisville airport) and hung up.
Was that a local scammer? Hopefully the scammer went to the airport and waited
Some of the scammers are targeting the elderly on purpose. Two scams also making the rounds here are the "You didn't show up for Jury Duty and you need to pay your fine now or you will be arrested" and "This is the Sheriff's Office and we have a warrant for your arrest. If you pay now, you will not be arrested."
In some cases the scammers are spoofing the caller ID where it shows the police or a government agency, and many people are convinced by that that it is a real call. Many scammers are also spoofing caller ID to show a local number very similar to your own number so you will think it might be a real call. There needs to be more public awareness that caller ID can be made to show anything.
I assume your message to the scammers is, "Partner, you better find a different line of work. This one does not suit you." John Wayne in The Shootist.
No doubt it was a spoofed call.
Don't get the IRS calls anymore; they were my favorite. One time I said it is IRS policy that their employees have perfect English with no accents. Another time I said it is against federal law for the IRS to call taxpayers, they only send out a letter. Sure had a laugh when it was on the news that a bunch of them in Mumbai, India were arrested...they worked for Delta Airlines Call Center. Easy access to names and phone numbers.
I haven't laughed this hard for many years...OMG...LOL..
The last line made me explode!
The whole reason this happened is in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. She had been playing for 50 years and imagined paying off the mortgages of her children and grandchildren with the winnings.
She didn't tell anyone about the calls because she wanted it to be a surprise. And she thought, "What if I really did win. If I don't pay I won't get anything." Her desire to help her kids and grand kids was what did her in.
Younger people say, How can she be so stupid? But they don't realize the elderly aren't always as sharp mentally as they once were, and can be and often are, talked into doing things like this by real smooth talkers who "befriend" them.
For those who might say, "How can her kids not know?" let me ask you this. Have your kids ever done anything that you didn't find out about until much later?
l don't buy it Sir.Gullibility is no excuse G. It was G.R.E.E.D.- plain and simple.
Vivian was a nursing supervisor, l had to look up what that entailed: Nursing Supervisors are in charge of hiring and firing their staff of nurses, as well as scheduling and overseeing patients.That is quite a lot to carry- obviously Vivian had horned her skills, and knew a great deal of working with people.So, for argument sake, lets say that she retired at 62, are we to imagine that 20 odds years later she became idiotic, did not know that she was being conned, you write check after check and still cannot put two and two together? As for being elderly and not always being " sharp?"
Michael Caine: 85 years Old.
still working.
Clint Eastwood: 88 years Old.
still directing.
Robert Duvall: 87 years Old.
still acting.
Christopher Plummer: 89 years Old
still acting.
*Think any of the above would be writing check after check... like Vivian G?
Yes, you can be sharp as a tack at 62-65 or even 75 and later on gradually lose your mental capabilities within a few years. It is called dementia and alzheimers disease. I hope you or anyone never have any family members with either of these. It is no picnic to live with. And a lot of these people end up in nursing homes, because the family cannot handle the 24 hour a day care needed to care for them.
Imagine if you will, someone taking your keys and not knowing where they put them. Meanwhile you tear the house apart looking for them. Where were they? Inside a pot in the kitchen cabinet. Or in the mailbox. How about you do their laundry and tell them to put it away, and you find it in the oven or the fridge instead of the dresser. Or they get a glass of milk and put the container of milk in the dishwasher. Or they start filling the bath tub to take a bath, and then they leave the water running and go watch tv, because they forgot why they went in the bathroom. You make them lunch and later you find it untouched in the trash, meanwhile they keep saying I'm hungry. Or how about them going to the bathroom and using the shower curtain to wipe their butt because they don't remember what Charmin' is for.
In the early stages they can be easily convinced to do things you or I would never do. Scammers high five each other when they find someone like that. The greedy ones are the scammers.
Yeah, it's always funny till it happens to you.
I only play lotteries by subscription, so if I get a phone call from a lottery, it can't be a scam.