Scammers cheat American Elderly out of over three billion dollars a year that is unrecoverable. It is important to understand the various types of scams that often succeed.
Scammers will call a person based on the fact that they have been listed as a survivor to a recent death. The scammers know that a person is often in so much emotional hurt and confusion from the loss of a loved one, that they will often believe things they are told over the phone, even if unusual.
They will engage the MARK, a Mark is a person who has been targetted for abuse. A scam. They will claim that the Mark, or the Mark's recently lost loved one was owed back money or a refund, or a rebate, but to get the money, the mark must log on to their computer, and then to log on to their bank. Through the process the mark is walked through installing software on their computer that allows the scammer to change the code that shows the numbers in the bank account.
They then walk the mark through a process of getting their "Refund" and one way or another they make the mark believe that the mark has made a mistake, and instead of getting a refund of a set amount, it is ten times or one hundred times more money than should have been "Refunded"
They convince the mark that the money has indeed been deposited in their bank, by faking the image on the screen from the bank, they often have to BLACK OUT the screen in order to edit the underlying computer programming that shows the numbers from the bank. The marks' computer shows the "Mistake" but the bank does not see the money, because it is not real.
The scammer will cry and complain that they will lose their jobs, that their children will go hungry, that they will have to repay the mistake, and so on. They will yell, they will do every evil thing they can think of to convince the mark that they are in trouble.
The scammer then does everything they can to get the mark to obtain cash,or gift cards that can be used as cash, to return the Mistakenly Refunded Money. This may be by mailing it to an accomplace of the scammer, or the scammer. They can also get the money from gift cards, and once that money is sent, there is no way to get it back.
