One morning in October of 2023, Charlotte Cowles woke up just like most of us did. She was an ivy-league-educated writer in her late thirties, who wrote columns on personal finance for The New York Times. Talented, young, capable. A few hours in, she got a call from a rep at Amazon who alerted her to fraudulent transactions on her account. Over the next four or five hours, she was kept on the phone by the rep, then an agent with the FTC, then a covert CIA operative, all with a tale of escalating seriousness and urgency. Before the end of the day, she had withdrawn $50,000 from an ATM and handed it to another CIA agent in car for safekeeping. It was all a giant con, all of it.
Charlotte wasn’t duped because she was naïve or careless. The sophisticated ruse broke down her defenses step by step, hour by hour. They had answers to all her questions, they knew all her personal details already, they anticipated her suspicions and countered them.
This can happen to any of us. In fact, more people in their twenties are scammed than those in their seventies. There is a scam for everyone - the financial confident fall for investment schemes, the anxious fall for cons built on dire consequences, the lonely fall for romance traps and elders, with the most money and time on their hands, seem to be targets of the whole arsenal.
The FTC reported $10B in fraud last year, up 14% from the previous year. It is a plague, and our technology and data has made it easier than ever to scam us. I am not immune either. Just weeks ago, while this article was taking shape in my head, I unwittingly gave my credit card number to a text message link claiming to be UPS.
What Charlotte experienced wasn’t extraordinary. Fortunately for us, her courage to share her story was – and that will make us all smarter. I reviewed a lot of great sources for advice on how to avoid falling victim, and have a short, distilled mantra: STALL, CALL and TELL ALL
STALL – slow the scammer’s roll.
The scammer’s biggest weapon is urgency, and your biggest defense is time.
They will want you to act before you digest all the information they throw at you. The pretense will always be urgent – an expiring offer or someone in the hospital in dire need of money – NOW!
Your cue is when they ask you to send money or share an account number. It is time to start the stall. Tell them you need to hit the bathroom or that you must look for a notepad. Ask them to call you back in ten minutes. If the matter is genuine, it will still be there in ten minutes.
CALL – it is your turn to call now.
The first call is to the subject of the situation. If you are told your nephew is in jail, your grandchild in the hospital, or your friend robbed while travelling in Europe, call them directly. A scammer may have put this on the line, using AI generated voices, but it is unlikely they have their phone as well.
The second call is to the institution the stranger on the phone claimed to be from. If it is Amazon, look up their customer service line. If it is the FTC, the IRS or some other three-letter agency of the government, find their phone number yourself and call them.
Finally, if these two calls haven’t vaporized the scammer’s story, your third call is to a trusted contact – a friend or relative who isn’t aware of all this yet. Call them, narrate the full story, and ask them to come over or join the conversation if possible. You will need an objective mind to help you through this.
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Finally, TELL ALL.
Luckily, we have Charlotte’s cautionary tale to share and learn from. Sadly, most victims of fraud feel too ashamed and embarrassed to tell their story. If the scam wasn’t catastrophic, it gets swept under the rug. That is how the entire industry manages to evolve and grow in sophistication.
Start with calling the bank or credit card company that may have been compromised. Change your accounts if needed. Go to the police if you are being actively blackmailed. Next, file a report with the Federal Trade Commission, which tracks and investigates fraud. Bring in your friends and family – tell them what happened, the signs you missed and the steps you wished you had taken.
Share this article with your family and bring it up over dinner. That’s how we stop the scourge. STALL – CALL – TELL ALL.
Here are some other great resources:
What to do if you were scammed. The Federal Trade Commission.
How to avoid a scam. The Federal Trade Commission.
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