Threats From Home: The Chinese Consulate Scam
The Perfect Scam
AARP
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2019
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chinese Americans are being targeted by scammers in schemes known as the "Chinese consulate scam" and the "blessing scam," through which victims have lost millions. When Mandarin-language calls began to bombard residents across the U.S., authorities take a deeper look. They find that these illegal robocalls are targeting areas with large Chinese American populations. Victims of the Chinese consulate scam are told they are in legal trouble with the Chinese government. The scammers then persuade them to hand over money or personal information to resolve the phony problem. Victims lose $150,000 on average.
And, in Chinatowns across America, scammers are targeting older Chinese Americans in the blessing scam, aka the ghost scam. This scam uses some victims' traditional beliefs to lure them into an elaborate con that involves a team of scammers who work in tandem to steal valuables and cash.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Coming out this week on AARP the perfect scam. |
| 0:03.0 | Some victim were crying to me when they were talking about it. |
| 0:06.0 | Oh, I even put my necklace that I've been wearing for 40 years in that bag and now it's all gone. |
| 0:14.0 | Welcome back to AARP The Perfect Scam. |
| 0:19.0 | I'm your host Will Johnson and I'm here with AARP's Fraud Watch network ambassador Frank Abagnale. |
| 0:24.0 | Thanks for being here again. |
| 0:25.0 | Great to be here well. Thank you. |
| 0:27.0 | Frank we are talking this week about a scam that targets a specific community |
| 0:32.0 | a Chinese community actually more than just one. |
| 0:34.2 | In fact, this is a big problem. |
| 0:37.4 | But I think it certainly brings up the issue and the |
| 0:43.0 | scammers will go after any group they can and employ |
| 0:46.0 | whatever tools or tactics they can to |
| 0:48.0 | get money out of them. |
| 0:50.0 | Absolutely. |
| 0:51.0 | And in this case, you know, just the fact of the culture of people who are from |
| 0:54.9 | China and the fear of the Chinese government is two factors right away to make a |
| 0:59.4 | scam work if I take those two things the a combination and apply them against my victim. |
| 1:04.4 | And we'll get into it. |
| 1:05.4 | We'll hear about how they say it's the Chinese embassy calling or one thing or another. |
| 1:09.3 | Another aspect of this that we'll hear about that the scammers play off of is the concern and |
| 1:16.9 | we've talked about this with other scams where older people don't want to |
... |
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