Con-artists targeting older individuals to take over their property or wealth as they get old usually happens within family or sometime by a friend.

Below is an incident where it happens using technology by person who you have never met or do not even know.

Two days back I came to know of an individual who was kept almost in a hostage using technology and HiTech Cons where trying to empty the elderly persons hard earned money kept for his old age. It all started as below so please read and be careful about this type of emails.

Fishing – An email (Bait) comes in stating the person is been charged $500 for a service the person never used with Paypal. With the email subject stating it as a payment processed. Content of the email is about the reason for the payment made with a fake number to call Paypal (Fake) customer support to correct it.

As soon as seeing this the individual calls the number in the email and here is where it starts.

Member 1 pretends to be Paypal (Fake) employee and takes the call. Starts the apologizing process how it has happened by mistake and (Fake) Paypal would refund the money immediately and is going to be connecting the call to a person who will takeover this issue serious and will refund the money immediate.

Member 2 who pretend to initiate the process and tells the person he is going to be sending a link to initiate the refund process. As soon the person clicks the link your system (computer) is under their control. Now, they also show a popup and make you type $500 to initiate the refund. When the elderly type the amount they add additional few more “0”s to it to make it look like he or she typed $50,000 instead of $500. Another apology (this time from Member 2) happens and this time they want to help you in refunding the $49,500 which now you owe them. Now Member 2 makes it look like it is a fault happened when the elder person typed and make it look like it is the elderly person’s fault. Now he wants to help the elder fix it so he transfers the call to the Senior Tech Con – Member 3.

Member 3 comes as a savior now and starts talking as if he is there to help you in fixing your mistake and talks very friendly and keeps the elderly engaged in the call. In the meantime since they have already taken control of the system a team in the backend (not sure how many) is studying all your other browser to learn about you and bank accounts if any as they know you have your passwords are saved in it or you have kept the browser open.

They ask the elderly person to login to their own bank as if they are going to help them to transfer the excess money wired by accident from fake Paypal and now they have access to their bank account also.

They make you open a “Notepad” and they type the wire details for a bank in Hong Kong where they want you to send the money to resolve the issue with fake Paypal payment. They ask you to turn on the printer to print wiring details for you and they want you to call the banker to do a telephone wire request. They suggest on what need to be told if the banker asks the reason for the wire transfer request- “I am very sick and this money has to go out as it is for a real-estate deal which is very urgent”

Luckily in the incident I have narrated above someone intervened and stopped the progress.

Family or friend Con-artist usually take few years to lure a elderly person but here they are keeping hostage of the elder person for 4 to 5hrs. The elderly person almost gets into a duress state (Stockholm syndrome) that the elderly want to resolve the issue asap so they could be relieved out of the problem. During the whole conversation the elder person is made sure not to call or talk to any other person at home. They are doing this by repeatedly saying “I am here to Help you as I am a honest person” “If I do not solve this problem I will loss my job”

Con-Artist once happened in person now has started using technology to their advantage and now have become smarter. If you have elders at home please make sure to talk to them about this so they are aware of this sought of criminals who need to be in jail.

• First step they will put you in a weak spot
• Pretend to help as soon as they feel you have started to believe them
• Make you feel you did something wrong
• Make you feel guilty of a mistake you did not do
• Showing a way how to help them
• Lure them and make you do what they want you to do

I am not a professional writer and the above content is done for awareness.