How a senior citizen almost lost $300K in a Social Security scam

From NJ.com

Senior citizens who depend on Social Security income are the target of a growing phone scam aimed at bilking retirees out of their life savings.

A Cumberland County senior is one of the latest victims.

She didn’t want to share her name but she wanted to warn others about the scam. We’re going to call her Grace.

Here’s what happened.

Grace received a robocall message that claimed there was an investigation into her Social Security number. She ignored the message.

The scammer called and left a second message, and Grace was concerned enough to call him back.

A man who identified himself as a Social Security Administration officer answered the call in heavily accented English.

He told Grace there was a lot of criminal activity in Texas related to her Social Security number, specifically drug trafficking and money laundering. He transferred her to a supervising officer.

This person told Grace she needed to move quickly. Law enforcement was close to seizing her financial accounts, he said, and her Social Security number was being suspended.

“This alleged officer stated he wanted to help her and she needed to take all of her money out of her bank accounts and send the cash to him,” said James Matlock, director of the Cumberland County Division of Consumer Affairs. “Once he received the cash, he would secure it in a safe place and return it to her, in full, once the Social Security number suspension was lifted.”

The officer told Grace not to tell anyone about the money transfer - not even her husband - because they could both get in trouble, Matlock said.

Grace was scared. She was afraid that she could lose all of her savings.

She followed the officer’s instructions.

She withdrew $45,000 in cash from her banks. Per the instructions, she wrapped $20,000 in bubble wrap and placed it in a FedEx box, shipping it to a New York address. She did the same with the rest of the money, sending it to a different address in New York.

Next, the officer instructed Grace to clean out her IRA accounts. He would safeguard that money, too.

Grace contacted her IRA custodian and initiated the withdrawal, and the custodian withheld $45,000 for taxes.

It would take a week for her to receive the remaining $180,000 balance.

While she waited, the officer directed Grace to purchase $7,000 worth of gift cards from Target, Walmart, Best Buy and GameStop.

A LIGHT BULB

When the $180,000 arrived, again, per the officer’s instructions, she gathered the cash and the gift cards. She was going to mail it all to the scammer.

But on the way to send the packages, she paused.

She remembered meeting Matlock at a senior fraud presentation in 2018. She decided to call him to ask if she was doing the right thing.

“I immediately advised her it was a scam and stopped her from sending the additional cash and gift cards,” Matlock said.

He directed Grace to contact the local police and to put a freeze on her credit reports. Matlock also contacted the New Jersey State Police’s cybercrime unit.

While Grace didn’t lose the rest of her money, she’s still out the first $45,000. Because she mailed cash, it’s unlikely that her money will ever be recovered.

She’s also going to owe a tax bill on part of the IRA withdrawal.

Matlock is working with the companies from which Grace purchased the gift cards so at least she can get that money back.

PROTECT YOUR LOVED ONES

Matlock wants to remind us all that the government will never suspend your Social Security number. No representative from a government agency will threaten you or try to solicit money over the phone.

“Never, never give your Social Security number or personal information over the phone, no matter who the caller claims to be,” he said.

The scammers are tricky, and they’re able to make it look on your caller ID that a call is really coming from a government agency or from your local neighborhood.

If you do not recognize the number, do not answer it, Matlock said. If it’s important, the caller will leave a message.

Of course, the scammers did leave messages for Grace, and she did call them back. If you receive a message and you’re not sure if the call is legit, don’t call the number. Instead, look for the real number for the agency that’s allegedly calling you and you can confirm whether there’s a problem with your account.

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Meet the man who invented America’s first ATM 50 years ago

Donald Wetzel demos America's first ATM in 1969 at the former Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, LI.Courtesy the Wetzel family

Three times per month, Donald Wetzel heads to a drive-up automated teller machine near his Dallas home.

“It’s convenient and fast, and I’ve got my money and I’m gone,” the 90-year-old tells The Post.

But he keeps his own accomplishments humble during these trips. Wetzel invented America’s very first ATM, which debuted 50 years ago on Sept. 2, 1969, at the former Chemical Bank (now a Chase location) in Rockville Center, Long Island.

“I’m proud that it all worked out well and I feel good I had the idea, but a lot of people have had a lot of ideas,” he says. He’s even quick to add that his wife, 87-year-old Eleanor, has never once used an ATM.

“She’s afraid that the machine will take her card and not give it back to her,” he quips.

Many don’t know the nation’s first ATM took its maiden voyage on Long Island.

“I was surprised and I’m a Long Islander,” says Harry Coghlan, 54, CEO and executive director of the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency. “I was also very surprised that it was 50 years ago … [it’s] an innovative technology that changed the banking industry — and it changed how we consumers act.”

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Despite the technological advancement, the 1969 premiere of the outdoor machine was kept low-key — and Wetzel was present for it.

“They advertised it and said, ‘On September 2, our bank will open at 9 o’clock and never close again,’” he says.

But at 10 a.m. Sept. 6, Nassau County will honor Wetzel with a ceremony for the anniversary at the bank, located at 10 North Village Ave.

However, the ATM that appeared that day in Rockville Centre wasn’t the first in the world. According to Smithsonian Magazine, cash dispensers rolled out in Sweden and Britain in 1967. In 1969, when this Long Island one opened, another debuted in Tokyo.

Still, the birth of the American ATM owes its origins to Wetzel being stuck on a Dallas bank line before departing on a business trip in 1968.

“It happened to be right at noon on payday for a lot of workers,” he says. “The line was long and it was taking forever to get money of an account that I knew was there. All they had to do was give it to me. I didn’t want to wait a half an hour for them to give it to me.”

So over the next year, Wetzel — working for a financial transaction systems manufacturer named Docutel — teamed with a mechanical engineer, Tom Barnes, and an electrical engineer, George Chastain, to develop the machine. They never intended to render bank tellers obsolete; it was a way for banks to keep visits efficient.

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The development came in two phases. The ATM that premiered in 1969, smaller than the ones used today, just dispensed cash and printed a receipt. In the second phase, a “total machine” that was unrolled in 1971 released cash, received deposits and transferred funds between accounts. Both relied on bank cards with magnetic strips, which stored account information.

“For me, that’s one of the proudest things I feel about the ATM — that we really did our homework,” Wetzel says. “We knew what functions the machine had to perform.”

The reason it rolled out on Long Island? Docutel was a subsidiary of a company named Recognition Equipment, Inc., which had an established relationship with Chemical Bank after previously doing business together. Click here to continue reading.