Scams have been a thing over the last number of years. In fact, it has been found that elderly citizens lose about $3 billion per year to financial scams.
Scammers target older people because they find it easier to get to them by pretending to be a close relative (child, grandchild). At the same time, they think retired citizens have more money sitting in their accounts compared to younger people.
Scams can come in many different forms, but the most popular of them is the fraudster calling the potential victim pretending to be a close relative.
More often than not, scammers also pretend to be calling from the IRS, informing that the elderly person owes a significant amount of money, and threatening with jail or deportation.
The latter was the case for a 92-year-old woman living in Roseville, California.
A fraudster called the woman at the Sun City retirement home where she lives, and pretended to be working for the IRS, informing her that she owed $25,000.
The woman, according to the scammer’s instructions, had to get a taxi and go to the bank to transfer this amount to the “IRS”.
At the same time, the scammer called a cab driver, asking him to drive the woman to the bank.
But, while their plan seemed to be working like a charm, the scammers couldn’t have guessed that the cab driver was not only an honest guy, but also a caring person, who wouldn’t be easily deceived.
Raj Singh is the owner of Roseville Cab. When the scammers called him, he immediately got suspicious.
Why would an elderly woman need to transfer such a large amount of money?
So, when the elderly lady got in his cab, he started chatting with her, and as time went by, he was getting more and more suspicious.
Singh even called the scammer back, asking how he knew this woman and why she had to pay this amount of money. That’s when the scammer got frustrated and told the cab driver to mind his own business.
By that moment, Singh had been convinced it was a scam.
When he talked to the woman about his suspicions, she didn’t believe him. Luckily, he managed to convince her to stop by Roseville Police and double-check with them before going to the bank.
Indeed, they went to the police station, where an officer went to the cab to talk to the elderly woman. After their brief chat, the officer knew the call was definitely a scammer’s work.
Roseville police praised the man for his deed, and offered him a $50 gift card as a way to say “thank you”.
“We love this story because several times throughout, Raj could have just taken his customer to her stop and not worried about her wellbeing. He took time from his day and had the great forethought to bring the almost-victim to the police station for an official response,” Roseville Police posted on Facebook.
Knowing that there are still caring people out there, who are willing to help fellow citizens who don’t even know are in danger, is a relief.
Head over to the video below for more details on this amazing story!
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