Kentucky Fights Back Against Scammers
The Perfect Scam
AARP
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2019
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Pat, an 81-year-old woman from Kentucky, receives a call that she has won a $7.5 million lottery prize. Pat can't believe her luck. Unaware that the call is a scam, she begins speaking with the scammers multiple times a day. Over the next seven months, they befriend Pat in an effort to convince her that she'll receive the prize money as soon as she pays taxes on her winnings. Slowly they gain Pat's trust, and she starts sending money to the scammers. Every time she thinks she has made a final payment and will receive her prize, the scammers come up with a new issue requiring her to send more money. Eventually the scammers take over $100,000 from Pat. Unfortunately, Pat's story is common among lottery-scam victims. Often by the time these scams are uncovered, victims have lost thousands of dollars, and because of the difficulties in tracking down and prosecuting scammers, most never receive restitution. However, determined to get a better outcome for citizens, the state of Kentucky has dedicated resources to fight back against scammers. Investigators in the Kentucky Attorney General's office have been working to track down and prosecute scammers, and their efforts are paying off. In the last four years the Kentucky Attorney General's office has returned $2.1 million to victims of fraud. When they hear about Pat's case they dive in, following the money, hoping to apprehend the scammers and get justice for Pat.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Coming up on AARP the perfect scam. |
| 0:04.8 | Now these are real life everyday people whose lives are being devastated by criminals |
| 0:11.6 | because these con artists feel millions of dollars. |
| 0:17.0 | Welcome back to AARP The Perfect Scam I'm Will Johnson and I'm here with my co-host |
| 0:22.0 | AARP's Fraud Watch Network Ambassador Frank Abagnale. |
| 0:25.6 | And Frank, everyone can be victimized by scammers. |
| 0:28.5 | It can be the young, it can be someone who's middle age, you can be old, everybody is vulnerable. |
| 0:34.1 | One thing that is really interesting that I've heard talked about is well. |
| 0:36.9 | Education of course is so important, especially for people who are older and who might not be |
| 0:40.3 | aware of some of these scams, It's the people who are trying to |
| 0:43.3 | reach don't always go to the educational forums where they might learn |
| 0:46.1 | about scams. They might not be downloading our podcast so it can be harder to |
| 0:49.9 | reach those people that are most vulnerable. Yeah, and that's why, you know, and I'm not just saying this because of my involvement with |
| 0:56.4 | ARP and the Fraud Watch Network, but long before I ever came to ARP, ARP and the Fraud Watch Network have been doing just that. |
| 1:04.5 | They have been trying to basically educate individuals young and old about these scams |
| 1:10.1 | to help them prevent them being victims of these scams. |
| 1:13.5 | I think they do an amazing job. |
| 1:15.5 | They go beyond that by having a call center that people can call into. |
| 1:20.1 | They do programs with me and many of the states around. We get thousands of people come out. |
| 1:25.4 | We do the podcast here to help educate people. I don't know of any government agency or any private |
| 1:31.2 | sector group that is doing anything close to what |
| 1:34.8 | ARP does in this realm and then opens it to anyone, not that you're a member of |
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