Conservatorship: A Scam Jammer's Last Resort

As I've noted in earlier posts, a small percentage of Sweepstakes Scam victims refuse to quit paying the bogus fees demanded by Jamaican fraudsters, despite all evidence to the contrary that by doing so, they will receive millions of dollars in return.

Because the odds of catching the perpetrators of Advance Fee fraud are slim, concerned family members of Scamblers (compulsive fake-fee-payers) have no choice but to try to stop the victim, whether the victim likes it or not.

Such was the case with my eightysomething father, who is a charter member of the Ornot tribe.

So resistant was my dad to our family's attempts to stop him sending money, that after exhausting every other alternative, we were forced to take legal action to protect my father from himself. Specifically, we petitioned the court to appoint a conservator, which is roughly defined as a "guardian appointed by a judge to protect and manage the affairs and/or the person's daily life due to physical or mental limitations or old age."

While the criteria for appointing a conservator may vary from state to state, I thought the similarities would be sufficient to make it worthwhile for me to walk you step-by-step through our family's journey of conservatorship.

1. We hired an attorney who specialized in Elder Law.

2. We obtained a written testimonial from my father's physician, that he was showing signs of declining cognitive function (without such preliminary proof, you're basically toast).

3. Citing the physician's testimony as evidence, our attorney petitioned the court to appoint a temporary conservator or guardian, to oversee my father's affairs.

4. The judge found sufficient cause to designate me temporary conservator, and made it official with Temporary Letters of Conservatorship, an important legal document authorizing me to take many of the steps necessary to protect my father against further financial loss.

5. The court appointed an attorney (called a Guardian Ad Litem, which we had to pay for) to represent my dad.

6. My father had to submit to a court-mandated psychiatric exam that I had to arrange, and our family had to pay for. It is ironic to say the least that my father was talking on his cell phone to the scammers less than five minutes before his appointment.

7. A private hearing (trial-like proceeding with only the judge, attorneys, and my father and I present) was held to determine whether my dad was an adult with an impairment, in need of a conservator.

8. I had to testify against my father, and undergo to a rigorous cross-examination by the Guardian Ad Litem, who did his best to discredit my testimony and have our documentary evidence (which consisted mainly of photocopies rather than originals) ruled inadmissible.

9. Despite the psychiatrist's assertion that my father was "high functioning and of above average intelligence," the judge wisely concluded (a couple of weeks later at a final hearing where he announced his decision) that my father was nevertheless impaired, because his irrational behavior and delusions of winning demonstrated a clear incapacity to exercise sound judgment in money matters.

10. The judge then ordered that an inventory be taken of my father's assets, to help determine who should be appointed permanent conservator of his finances. In our family's case, that turned out to be me - although in some instances, the court appoints a third party with a financial background, such as a bank official.

If there are any lessons to be learned from this (and I'm not sure there are), they are:

• Seek conservatorship sooner, rather than later.
  
• If possible, find an Elder Law attorney experienced in litigation (pleading your case in front of a judge at a hearing). Though it seems trivial, an inept litigator can make procedural errors that hurt your chances of a favorable outcome.
  
• Whether they are temporary or permanent, Letters of Conservatorship compel money transfer services, banks, and credit card companies, to cooperate with you.
  
• Document everything about the scam, that you can: Money transfers, checks, names, phone numbers, etc. Originals are preferable to copies.
  
• Keep a journal of everything you do about the scam, both before and after obtaining conservatorship: What you did and when you did it; who you talked to, when you talked to them, what you talked about, and what the outcome was.
  
• If local law enforcement authorities have cautioned your loved one about the scam, ask them to testify at the conservatorship hearing.
  
• Don't expect the victim to thank you, for protecting them.

Personally, I would not wish on anyone the experience of having to testify against a parent, particularly in their presence.

Unpleasant as it was, however, I am living proof that anybody can do it, and that this difficult task is made easier, but not easy, with the backing of a support network. That, and the peace of mind that comes from knowing without question, that you are doing the right thing.

Scambling: When Losers Become Addicts

While I have no data to support the claim, I suspect that most victims of Sweepstakes fraud get scammed once and that's the end of it. When they realize they haven't won millions, and that a package containing their prize check will never arrive, they stop paying bogus fees.

Sadly, a small group of victims become cash cows who can't stop giving milk. For these individuals the impulse to pay becomes so strong that it morphs into a compulsion I call "Scambling."

Though technically not gambling (gamblers at least have a chance to win, and their behavior is occasionally reinforced by payoffs), the parallels between Scambling and compulsive gambling are striking.

Take, for example, my father's irresistible urge to send cash to the con men, which bears all of the hallmarks of compulsive gambling, namely:

• Large losses
• Denial
• Lack of impulse control
• Overestimation of the odds of winning
• Clandestine activity (secret phone calls, and money transfers on the sly)
• Disregard for the harm losing does themselves and others
• Belief that they'll be vindicated, when they hit the jackpot

To me, nothing comes close to explaining my father's behavior as well as does addiction. What but an addiction would you call it, if a loved one sent money eighty-six times, to twenty-five strangers, in three different countries, with a hundred different phone numbers, and thirty different aliases?

Whatever it is, I sure as hell wouldn't call it a sweepstakes.

From Victim To Helper

Sweepstakes scam victims can get taken so badly, that they will do almost anything to recoup their losses. A few become so desperate, that they consent to help their victimizers rip off other people.

Case in point: My father, who has agreed to both receive and send checks, for his Jamaican handlers.

EPISODE 1: THE PAYMENT PROCESSING SCAM

This game requires at least three players: A prospect (potential victim), a helper, and a crook.

Step 1: The crooks contact the prospect, and tell them they've won millions of dollars, which will be released once they pay the requisite fees.

Step 2: If the prospect agrees to send money but refuses to wire cash, the criminals instruct them mail a check overnight to a payment processor in the U.S. or Canada (because the fraudsters don't want to receive checks, which can be traced).

Step 3: The processor cashes the check, and immediately sends all or a portion (after extracting a "commission") of the proceeds to the scammers, either directly, or through a fellow money launderer.

For all its phoniness, the Payment Processing con can be especially effective because:

• It preserves the crooks' anonymity.
• It gives the fraudsters an opportunity to swindle new prospects, while making past victims more beholden to them.
• As the lone identified party, the payment processor is the one on the hook when the prospect discovers they've been had.
• If the check bounces after funds have been withdrawn, the processor must repay the bank.

Luckily, things didn't go down as planned when the scammers tried this number on my father. Thanks to a tip from his bank, I was able to intercede before any money changed hands

EPISODE 2: THE SCAMBUSTING PLOY
After my dad failed as a payment processor, the crooks tried to find other ways to use him. One of their more imaginative ideas was to have my father pose as a fraud-fighting senior citizen out to get the Bad Guys. Here's what happened:

First, the crooks gave my dad the name and phone number of a retiree they were targeting.

Second, they had my pop call him up, and ask if he would like to help my father in a sting operation designed to catch the crooks red-handed. Specifically, my dad would send the prospective victim a check, which he would subsequently cash and wire to the crooks - all purportedly under the watchful eye of law enforcement authorities, who would follow the money trail back to the perpetrators.

Third, my father sent the man a bad check, intentionally filled out for conflicting amounts (one had an extra zero).

Thankfully, that's as far as it went, because the prospect's bank refused to cash a check made out for two different sums. They cried BS, and so did my dad's would-be helper.

By all accounts, these are the only two times my father has aided the con artists, a fact for which I am grateful. And if there is a lesson to be learned from my dad's collaboration with his victimizers, it is this:

Never underestimate the power of desperation.

Enter The Middleman

As you’ve learned from this blog and other sources, millions of dollars are flowing to Jamaica as the result of Sweepstakes scams. So much money, in fact, that the perpetrators are thinning their own ranks by killing each other for sheets (known as Sucker Lists) bearing names of individuals who have fallen for scams in the past, which makes them prime candidates for fleecing again.

Unless you or a loved one have been swindled more than once, however, you are unlikely aware that victims do not always wire payments directly to the Caribbean: In many cases, dupes are instructed to send cash to parties in the United States or Canada, who then forward all or part of the proceeds overseas.

When I first discovered that most of my father’s money transfers were domestic, I was baffled. Why would crooks operating beyond the reach of U.S. law officials want, or need, go-betweens?

Seeking answers to this question, I hunted down a few of these middlemen – some of whom turned out to be women – and asked them why they were doing, what they were doing.

The first individual I contacted was a seventy-five year old widow from Chicago, who was funneling money to the criminals just to be nice, because they asked her to "help relatives send funds to needy family members in Jamaica." When I told her what was really going on she apologized profusely, and vowed never to accept or send another cent.

The second person I spoke to was a sixty-something nurse in Virginia Beach, VA, who was also being conned. In essence, the criminals were using my dad's money as bait to hook her. Specifically, she had been told – after insisting she could not afford to pay the requisite fee – that she would be “sponsored” by a past winner (translation: loser), who would pay it for her. All she had to do was pick up the money at Western Union, and forward the cash to Jamaica.

Naturally, the crooks were hoping this charade would not only make their operation seem legitimate, but gull a reluctant prospect. In their own warped way, the scammers were getting maximum “bang” for my dad’s buck.

Fortunately, the nurse was wise to the crooks by the time I rang her up. Unfortunately, she got hip to their scam after relaying my father's money to the bad guys.

Although I have never encountered such a person myself, I have been told that middlemen are also recruited via fraudulent work-at-home ads, which promise commissions in exchange for “payment processing services” – a euphemism for money laundering.

All of which brings me back to my original question: Why do Jamaican scammers use go-betweens? The answers are many, and I am certain I don't know all of them. What I do know, is that middlemen are being used as Money Mules by their Jamaican masters.

The moral of the story: Don’t be a jackass and send cash to people who ask you to pay money, to get money.

And for heaven's sake, don't be anyone's donkey.

Seniors In Their Sights

Although people of all ages are solicited by scammers, perpetrators of Advance Fee fraud are particularly keen on fleecing the elderly.

Though obvious now, I first found this notion ridiculous because, having seen "everything under the sun," senior citizens tend to be wiser than the rest of us.

Upon further reflection, however, targeting elders makes sense because, as a group, they possess more potential vulnerabilities than other demographics. Specifically:

• Declining mental capacity - they sometimes do not reason as well, or think as critically as they used to.
• Respect for authority - unlike Baby Boomers and their successors, older victims are less likely to question authority figures, particularly if they claim to represent government agencies such as the FBI, IRS, or Department of Homeland Security.
• Innocence - having come up in a less cynical age, the elderly are inclined to be more trusting of others than the rest of us.
• Ignorance - lack of awareness, both of the vast array of fraudulent schemes, and the technologies (such as as Caller ID spoofing) criminals use to execute them.
• Loneliness and Depression - isolation can make elders susceptible to scheming flatterers who call them regularly, treat them with respect, and otherwise kill them with kindness.
  
• Financial insecurity - many senior citizens live on a fixed income and have few funds to spare. Afraid of outliving their money, some are tempted seek a big payoff to secure their financial future. 
• Benevolence - elders of modest means may also wish they had more money to help family members or organizations and causes close to their heart. Wanting to do good for others, these older adults are ripe for crooks bent on exploiting their generosity.
  
• Boredom - whether they live in an empty nest or a care facility, many seniors lack stimulation and will take excitement wherever they can find it, particularly if there is an element of chance involved. If you don't believe me, go to the nearest grocery or convenience store and watch them gobble up lottery tickets.

While there is no way of knowing for sure, I suspect that some or all of these weaknesses were exploited by the bastards that brainwashed my Dad, who, as a former salesman, used to be nobody's fool.

Now You See It, Now You Don't

To keep victims paying, Advance Fee fraudsters can get pretty creative.

Knowing that my father had borrowed heavily against his credit card to pay their phony fees, the crooks offered to pay off his balance (over $15,000) in exchange for $500 in cash, a proposition so absurd that even my impaired dad questioned it.

Anticipating pop's skepticism, the scammers cooked up the following charade, to make it look like they were making good on their ridiculous promise:

First, they obtained my dad's credit card number. Surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly, because my father was way over his limit), they did not make unauthorized charges on his account.

Second, they 'paid' my dad's bill by phone using the issuing bank's automated system, which asks for an account number, a routing number, and sometimes a check number. According to law enforcement officials, the withdrawal was made either on a bogus account, or without authorization from a legitimate account, such as the checking account of another scam victim.

Here's where it gets interesting: Transactions are posted to the credit card company's computer almost immediately, sometimes two, or even three days before the check is processed by the bank. This creates the illusion of payment when no money has, in fact, changed hands.

Not that most victims would know it. If the cardholder contacts the provider the day after the scammer 'pays their bill,' they will be told their balance is zero. The con men know the payment is a mirage, and pressure victims to send cash before it evaporates. In short: They use the float - the time it takes the check to bounce - to pick their pocket again.

Such are the lengths these Carribean dirtbags will go, to lend credibility to a scheme that any kid who's been offered a shiny new penny in exchange for a dirty old quarter, can see through.

White Knight, Black Heart

Perpetrators of Advance Fee fraud are so contemptuous of victims that they will rip them off coming and going.

By "coming and going" I mean that, after swindling them, the crooks try to extract even more cash from their quarry by riding to their rescue. Which is to say: Jamaican scammers try to get even more money from victims, by pretending to help them recover the money they stole.

All for a fee, of course, payable in advance, in cash.

This con - commonly known as a Recovery scam or "reloading" - was run repeatedly on my father. Though the approach was basically the same each time, my dad's would-be rescuers varied, and included fictitious characters such as

• Internal investigators from Publisher's Clearing House, and Wachovia Bank
• FBI and IRS agents
• Officials from the FTC
• Representatives of bogus watchdog and anti-fraud organizations
• Goodhearted colleagues of "the bad guys"

With heroes like this, who needs villains?

Birth of a Blog: My Dad's Story

For over a year and a half, my elderly father has been preyed upon by a ring of Jamaican con artists.

Their game is Advance Fee fraud (in the form of a Sweepstakes scam), wherein a large sum of money is promised in exchange for prepayment of certain fees, such as taxes and customs duties. It is all a hoax, of course, because no legitimate sweepstakes requires winners to pay to claim their prize.

If a target cooperates, the fees multiply and escalate, often in creative ways (the scammers have variously impersonated officials from Publisher's Clearing House, Federal Express, the IRS, FBI, and even the Department of Homeland Security). Naturally, the hoaxers demand payment in cash so they receive the funds immediately and there is no trail leading back to them.

I first became aware of my father's involvement in 2008 when he announced he was driving to the airport to meet a man who was going to deliver his winnings in a sweepstakes. Smelling a rat, I queried my dad and learned he had wired money to Jamaica to "release his prize." His unwillingness to disclose the sum sent a chill down my spine.

I told him it was clearly a scam, and tried unsuccessfully to talk him out of going to the airport. I then offered to tag along, but he refused to let me accompany him.

Naturally Mr. Prize Money was a no-show, although my father would later claim he had met him at Customs where his winnings were being "held up." I checked out his story with local officials, and they confirmed that no such thing ever happened.

Troubled by my father's credulity, I tried to convince him it was all a ripoff. I downloaded reams of evidence from the web, including warnings from federal agencies and testimonials from other victims. I even had the bunko specialist from the local police department talk to my dad in person. At the end of their meeting my father admitted that he had been duped, and thanked the detective for setting him straight.

Within twenty-four hours, he was sending money to the con men again.

Thus began my campaign to protect my parents against further loss, an undertaking that has pitted me against my dad, who in league with his controllers has been a formidable adversary.

Afraid of being overheard on the land line at home, my father started talking to the crooks in secret on his cell phone up to thirty times a day, and in one billing period his Verizon tab was over $2100. After I insisted on changing his mobile number, he promptly made it all for naught by making an outbound call to the criminals, revealing his new digits.

When changing my dad's cell number failed, I confiscated his mobile phone and swapped it for a model with restricted calling capabilities. The same day he responded by purchasing a prepaid unit at a local convenience store. When the prepaid phone proved to be a hassle, he ditched it and started calling his Jamaican masters from home, using international calling cards to keep overseas dials from showing up on his bill.

Then there were the money transfers: Although it took almost four months, I was finally able to persuade Western Union and MoneyGram to stop wiring funds for my father. It wasn't easy, though. Before they stopped, I had to monitor local outlets (such as grocery stores and Wal-Mart) for activity, often on a daily basis. I also circulated flyers warning WU and MG agents that my dad was being defrauded, begging them not send any cash on his behalf. While only one store had the guts to deny him service, all helped me by providing photocopies of my father's money transfers, which later proved useful.

Once blocked by the wire services, my father started sending envelopes stuffed with cash via UPS and FedEx. When I shut that down, he began sending money by Express Mail.

After exhausting every other option, our family was forced to take legal action and petitioned the court to appoint me conservator of my father's estate, because my dad would not grant me Power of Attorney. Luckily, the judge found sufficient cause to issue temporary letters of conservatorship until a hearing could be held to determine whether or not my dad was cognitively impaired.

After a series of delays there was finally a hearing, and the evidence compelled the judge to rule in our favor, and two months later I began serving as my dad's representative in matters involving money.

Since then I have been unraveling the knot of my father's expenditures. My parents' losses, I have discovered, are close to six figures. Furthermore, I've learned that, after emptying their joint checking and savings accounts, my dad borrowed money against the house and his credit cards to pay the con men's phony fees, which by my reckoning total over eighty installments. Thankfully my folks still have their home, and sufficient resources left to weather this financial storm.

As for my journey to conservatorship: To paraphrase the rock band The Grateful Dead, "what a long, strange trip it's been."

Along the way I have met bank officials, police detectives, fraud specialists, and FBI and Secret Service agents. I have talked to the Toronto police department, as well as the Federal Trade Commission and Attorney General's office. I have also spoken with people throughout the country who have been baited by the crooks with my dad's money. I even attended a meeting of Gam-Anon, a support group for family and friends of compulsive gamblers.

It has been an educational experience, and I am publishing this blog to share what I have learned, that others might not succumb to the scum who ripped off my father.