One Woman’s Story of Survival After a Scam, Part 1
The Perfect Scam
AARP
4.5 • 980 Ratings
🗓️ 25 August 2023
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Like many of us, Kathy struggles in the early days of the pandemic to adjust to isolation from family and friends. She enjoys the diversion of playing Words With Friends and soon strikes up a friendship with a fellow player. For months the friends continue playing online games and chatting on WhatsApp, until one day he asks Kathy for a loan. He says he is stuck in Mexico and having trouble accessing his accounts. Kathy sees no harm in helping out a friend, especially when he promises to quickly pay the money back. When the repayments never come, Kathy comes to the devasting realization that it was a scam and that most of her and her husband’s retirement savings are gone. Distraught and ashamed, Kathy begins to have thoughts of suicide. This is the story of one woman’s survival from the darkest of days.
This episode contains discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call or text 988, a free nationwide service where professionals can listen and get you the help you need.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the perfect scam. I'm your host Bob Sullivan. |
| 0:07.0 | Before we get to today's story, we wanted to share a bit of breaking news, good news, with you. The Federal Trade Commission has just |
| 0:15.0 | announced that gift card companies are now doing a better job of lagging fraudulent |
| 0:19.8 | transactions and, in some cases, freezing, stolen funds, and returning the money to victims. |
| 0:25.9 | So if you have been the victim of a crime involving gift cards and you fear your money is gone, |
| 0:31.1 | it might not be. |
| 0:32.4 | Make sure you report the crime as soon as possible to the gift card company and ask for |
| 0:37.2 | your money back. |
| 0:38.8 | Time is of the essence, which is why we've topped today's episode with this news. You can find a handy list of gift card contact |
| 0:45.6 | information at H.T.P.S. consumer.F.C.gov. |
| 0:51.2 | slash articles slash avoiding dash and dash reporting dash gift |
| 0:56.8 | dash card dash scams now if you didn't get that or you have any other questions |
| 1:01.6 | don't forget you can just email us at the |
| 1:04.2 | perfect scam. That's the perfect scam podcast at aARP.org. Now back to our regularly scheduled |
| 1:12.4 | programming. |
| 1:15.0 | Today we are bringing you a very special story |
| 1:18.0 | about a very brave woman who faced the darkest of days. |
| 1:22.0 | A criminal stole most of her family's retirement savings and |
| 1:26.6 | the emotional turmoil let her to try to take her own life. But Kathy Book is a survivor and her story will show you two really important things. |
| 1:37.0 | First, the emotional depths that these horrible crimes can drag people into. |
| 1:42.0 | But more important, how a supportive family, professional help, and |
| 1:46.0 | lots of courage are the key to surviving and thriving. I promise when you hear about the |
... |
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