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(MUSIC INTRO) [00:00:01] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam. [00:00:04] Chris Mancinelli: He'd tell one scammer about the other scammer he was chatting with and their story, which was a

made-up story. Now I almost felt like he was living in a soap opera, like a fantasy world. (MUSIC SEGUE) [00:00:20] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.

(MUSIC SEGUE) [00:00:24] Bob: When we left our story last week, Chris Mancinelli had just been visited by his father, Alfred, who wanted a $5000 loan because he was broke. Alfred at one

point had a million dollars in retirement savings. But the request wasn't a complete surprise. Chris, his wife, Christie, and his brother Alan had spent a couple of years trying to stop

their father from sending money to a series of criminals he'd met online, many posing as lovers or friends in need of medical care. That really tugged at Alfred's heartstrings

because he'd lost a daughter to leukemia and his wife had died when she was just 40. Dad sometimes seems to realize he's the victim of a scam, but other times he just can't

stop sending money to these people. But on this day, maybe, Chris thinks there's a breakthrough or at least a reason for hope because Dad has never come to him like this, fragile and

asking for help. As we'll see, the optimism is short-lived, however, as Alfred's story will soon take an even more tragic turn. [00:01:33] Chris Mancinelli: Um, so I was that, at

that time, you know we had some good conversations like we, we had some in the house or we went for a drive. Actually my dad was really embarrassed about it, and didn't want Christie to

know too much. He didn't want to, you know, even my brother and my brother's wife. You know he, he seemed to, you know, want to work with me now. And um, I was pretty angry and

upset and disappointed, and you know I told him like I can help you but under you know very strict kind of constraints. Like I want, you know full access to, to everything. Um, I want to,

I'm not going to give you a loan, but I want to see what you have left. You know if it's really to pay taxes, which it turns out it wasn't. You know I, I wanted more control

and I wanted him to see a therapist and, and he agreed to everything, like he actually, he was crying at one time. Uh, he seemed really like he wanted to now he realized like it's all

gone and I've done bad and I want to kind of get on a, a better path. [00:02:28] Bob: Alfred agrees to the conditions. Now Chris has access to every Google Chat, every social media

account, every financial transaction, everything. Christie is gentle with Alfred too. [00:02:41] Christie Mancinelli: You know I never wanted to make him feel ashamed, because like everybody

falls for scams at some point, you know, like and it's okay. So I just tried to reassure him and say, hey, you know it's okay. I called him Pops. And you know, "It's

okay, Pops. Like it happens to everybody," and I talked about like stuff that happened with my dad and we ended up with these, you know, this third-tier magazine subscriptions for

several years when I was younger, and uh, and so as I said, "As long as you're just taking steps to just move forward." You know I just wanted to make sure that he knew like,

it's nothing to be ashamed about to ask for help or to try to get out of something. And I really, honestly felt a lot of hope after that because of the way he approached you, Chris,

about his issue and, and really seeming very remorseful and, and contrite about it. So I, I was hopeful. I'm like, hey, maybe it just took this much money to learn the lesson, and now,

um, you know, it's not hopeless. He can move forward, and you know we'll, you know we'll, we'll move on from, from here. So. [00:03:45] Bob: It felt like rock bottom?

[00:03:48] Christie Mancinelli: I thought it was, I really thought it was. He would have never come to you asking for money, Chris, like that is very not your dad. [00:03:56] Chris

Mancinelli: Yeah. Yeah, it did feel like rock bottom, even the way he asked it was kind of like, uh, you know, you know it was kind of, it was very meek. It was definitely not my dad, you

know. Um, I think, uh Christie kind of touched on it earlier the way he was, I'm going to scam the scammers, you know there was kind of an arrogance about him, you know like he, he was

very street smart. You know he was smart in general, I, I think, and um, you know this whole thing just didn't make sense based on his, his character or how he was uh when we were

growing up and so for him to come like this kind of hat in hand was, was very, it was different. So it felt like rock bottom. I, I felt encouraged and, and I thought okay, look, I mean he

lost a lot but, but if this can, you know he has Social Security, and he has a pension, he can survive, you know, and he has us. So it, like he's got a safety net. [00:04:48] Bob: Chris

gives his father the money, but among the other conditions with the loan Alfred agrees to see a therapist about everything that's going on. The therapist has a few theories about

what's behind Alfred's behavior. [00:05:01] Chris Mancinelli: Yeah, the therapist, you know she said, um, I guess a few different things. So, you know, kind of lacking purpose. She

kind of connected with that as well. That he's got a lot of pain that he never dealt with. So you know the therapist thought that you know losing a child, um, losing a wife, but he

never um, really healed from that and maybe, you know, maybe he didn't, maybe he didn't. Maybe he just kind of just kept going because he needed to, he had, you know, us as young

children and work and life and everything. And you know I, I guess reflecting also back, like he kind of disconnected with my mom's side of the family. My mom was one of 13 children,

you know she was an Italian immigrant, and so big, big family, big Italian family. So I had a lot of aunts and uncles, have a lot of aunts and uncles, and um, after my mom passed and my

grandmother was still alive, we still had a good connection with that side of the family, but after my grandmother passed a few years later, we really completely lost touch with that side of

the family and, and I feel now as an adult looking back that my dad distanced him, himself so that the therapist thought a lot of that unresolved trauma is, is in him and leading to these

scammers. [00:06:13] Bob: And now that Chris has access to his dad's online chat programs, well he can see this all play out in real time because while his dad doesn't have access

to cash anymore, that doesn't mean the criminals have left him alone. [00:06:27] Chris Mancinelli: I did gain access to his Google Hangouts chats with these scammers, and they would

create scenarios that seems to really pull at my dad's heartstrings. And so the therapist, I think, recognized this as well. Having lost a young daughter to uh leukemia, a lot of the

scammer issues that would come up was, you know, a child of one of the scammers, um, who was injured and in the hospital and needed money for care. Or the scammer herself would be in the

hospital with some injuries -- I need care. So a lot of it was hospital-related bills that my dad was being asked to pay. And I think, I guess I think that that was compelling for him. And

so the therapist talked about that, right? Um... [00:07:16] Bob: He kept having a chance to help rescue somebody who is sick. [00:07:19] Chris Mancinelli: Yeah, basically, yeah. [00:07:22]

Bob: And with this deeper access to Dad's online presence, Chris gets rare access to watch as criminals keep grooming his father. [00:07:32] Chris Mancinelli: So then I would see new

people come in. I'd see his, his existing chat relationships with those scammers, and how they would continue to just hammer away at him to send them anything as small or as big as, as

he could afford, which at that time he couldn't really afford much, but he still did continue to give small amounts. And so I saw all of that happening, but then I'd see new people

come in with just um, "Hey, I think we met sometime." And then he'd be like, "Who are you?" And then they'd now just have a conversation and now they're

telling each other about their lives. You know, he would tell them, "I have two sons and they live here and here, and one has three daughters," and, and he'd tell them his

whole, his whole life to just a stranger. Um... [00:08:14] Bob: And, and as you're looking at it from your perspective, you can see where he's being probed for that weak spot,

right? [00:08:20] Chris Mancinelli: I, I felt it, yeah, I could see it. You know I say he used to have a lot, but now he has nothing. He'd tell one scammer about the other scammer he

was chatting with and their story, which is a, a made-up, which was a made-up story. So now I almost felt like he was living in a soap opera, like a fantasy world. And then our conversations

on the phone, and I never told him I was monitoring all his traffic, but um, he would tell me their stories as if they were real stories, like so and so had to, she lives in Mexico, and she

had to travel to the US to get the medical care that was required, but then her passport got lost, so she had to go to the immigration office and they charged her 20,000 to get her

documents. So like, and he's, you know, giving money wherever he could to help these people. [00:09:06] Bob: Unfortunately, this isn't rock bottom for the Mancinelli family because

an unexpected windfall makes Alfred a target again. [00:09:17] Chris Mancinelli: He was still giving money to the scammers. I was watching him. He'd give, it was now only like a few

hundred or 50. It was small enough that I said, look, I'll just leave it. Maybe this is his wean off period. I'm not going to hassle him about it, and he doesn't have much to

give anyway. So maybe things are going to just like peter out. And we, and we did feel like he was intentionally trying to change. But then, unfortunately, in October his brother, his only

brother, a younger brother, and they had been estranged for I don't know 30, 40 years um. They had never talked to each other for a long time, but he passed away. So my Uncle Mike, my

dad's brother passed away and it turns out, we never knew this, my dad never knew this, but he had a bank account which was joint ownership with my dad. So my dad got, in October of

'21 when he had almost nothing left, he got $120,000 that he now owned. [00:10:10] Bob: So Dad who was basically penniless but still giving away his last few pennies to criminals

suddenly has access to more than $100,000. [00:10:20] Chris Mancinelli: And um, that really scared my brother and I because uh-oh, now what's going to happen? So I was in Japan on

business at the time. We got onto a family call, and we agreed that since the, you know, the estate is going to be probably going through probate and need a lot, we had a lot to figure out,

that my dad agreed he would not touch the money. He promised me and my brother and, you know, where they would see what's happening with the estate. [00:10:46] Bob: But that promise

doesn't stand a chance against the manipulative powers of the criminals Alfred is still talking to. [00:10:54] Chris Mancinelli: By the time I got home a few weeks later, my dad had

already taken $20,000 out and given it, given it away. [00:11:02] Bob: And at this point, Chris takes the most drastic action he can think of. [00:11:08] Chris Mancinelli: So now it was down

to about $100,000. And this is when I kind of took the nuclear option because I said like he's not, you know this is all he's got left. And I know he liquidated all of his

Vanguard investments; he's going to have capital gains taxes to pay on that. He's got no money and if he, if we, if he just, this $100,000's going to be gone, you know, in a

month. So I went to the bank, um, after getting home from, from Japan. I went to the bank and I; I had co-ownership on the account at that time because you know after I agreed to help, I

came back into the scene, and I um, had the bank transfer the $100,000 to a separate account that he had no access to. [00:11:48] Bob: So Chris moves the rest of the money to a place where

his father can't touch it, and well that sets in motion the chain of events that spirals downhill to the darkest of places. [00:12:00] Chris Mancinelli: What I didn't know is right

at that same time he was on his way to withdraw $5000 to send to Alexa Bliss scammer, the scammer, and um, when he got there, he couldn't get any money out because I had just moved it.

So the timing was really bad, 'cause I was intending to move it and then tell him, so he couldn't prevent it from happening. But um, he learned by being at the bank trying to get

money, and then of course, that made him panic, and he called me and he's screaming at the bank people like that he has money and that they won't give it to him. But it turns out,

yeah, I had moved it. When he found that out, he screamed at me, and he was, you know, very abusive on the phone and, you know, demanded me to give it back. I said I would not, and um, that

was on December 7th of 2021. So just a few months after he had come to the house, you know, hat in hand, and, and it was like, I felt like it worse than, than ever, because the way he was

like cursing and screaming at me it was, he was, I, I didn't think I deserved that kind of abuse. [00:13:05] Bob: And from there Dad just cuts off his son. They stop communicating

entirely. The next time he hears from dad... [00:13:13] Chris Mancinelli: In early 2023, I get a mail--, I get a letter in the mail that I'm being, I'm going to be sued by my dad

for that money that I had, had moved. And then I had to, you know, um, get my own lawyer. I'd never been sued before. I had no idea. You know I was; I was actually scared. I don't

need to be sued, you know I'm trying to help him and now I have to go to court? Like I don't know what's going to happen next, you know. It'll be on my permanent record.

Am I going to have to go to jail? Am I going to have to pay penalties? Um, apparently it went to a fairly high court because the dollar value was about, it was 130,000, so I think over

100,000 it goes to like the circuit court which is one step below federal court. And how the heck did I get myself here? [00:13:58] Bob: Does the suit accuse you of what, the fraud of

stealing the money? [00:14:02] Chris Mancinelli: It does. What does it say, what did it say exactly? In essence yes, it, it accused me of taking it without permission, so I guess stealing,

yeah. [00:14:10] Bob: It's hard for me or anyone, I think, listening to this to not imagine a, a, an immediate phone call between your lawyer and your dad's lawyer would clear this

up. But that, that didn't happen? [00:14:22] Chris Mancinelli: My dad's lawyer was, I don't know, playing hardball? I don't know. [00:14:27] Bob: Oh my God. [00:14:27]

Chris Mancinelli: And just says, "You know that's fine. But you know Alfred wants the money back." And, and I said from the start, even with my lawyer which was hard to find a

lawyer too by the way, and which gave me more anxiety because once you get, served papers, now the time--, the clock starts ticking. It was very an--, anxiety-inducing, the whole thing. You

know within 30 days if you don't reply, you could default, and I was being asked to repay the money plus damages plus interest plus lawyer's fees. So I didn't, I don't

know what all of this was going to end up adding up to that I'm going to be out-of-pocket for, for what? [00:15:01] Bob: So Chris makes the only rational choice he can. He surrenders.

The criminals have won. [00:15:09] Chris Mancinelli: So I told my lawyer, "I don't, I don't want to, I'm not trying to fight a lawsuit here. I'll give the money

back. He can give it away if he wants." At this point I, I don't know what, what's left for me to do. So just please settle it. I don't want to pay his lawyer's fees

and all that, but so if he can get that eliminated, great. But I was even almost willing to pay it just to have it all be done. But um, at the end we settled that I would give him the money

back plus interest which was like a few dollars interest in a checking account over a year, it was like a dollar, I don't know, and then we settled. I gave the money back and then that

the lawsuit was dropped. [00:15:45] Bob: Chris gives the $100,000 back to his dad with interest and the outcome is predictable. Within just a few weeks Alfred sends all that money to

various online criminals. And then and even deeper tragedy strikes. [00:16:02] Chris Mancinelli: So he, he was out, the neighbors had told us, early July, he went out to chase down the

mailman for something but tripped and fell in the street and uh hit his head which broke his neck during the fall. So they went to the emergency room. He got surgery, but he didn't

survive. So 10, 10 days later he had passed away after um, you know surgery for a broken neck. [00:16:25] Bob: It's a tragic task going through Alfred's things after his death.

When Chris walks into the house they see pictures of girlfriend Alexa Bliss all over the place, and what's more... [00:16:38] Chris Mancinelli: What we found when we went through his

house my, my brother and I, you know um, we found, you know, his bank statements, uh, which um, showed that that $100,000 that I had given back in May was gone in a month. So he had um, just

continued to give it away until he was back down to zero. He did pay his taxes though. So I guess that's... [00:17:00] Bob: Hmm, did you, did you ever speak to him after the

settlement? [00:17:03] Chris Mancinelli: No, no I didn't, we didn't. [00:17:05] Bob: Sorry. [00:17:06] Chris Mancinelli: I hope it's understandable. I was in no mood to speak

with him after that. Um, I, I had no idea how we would speak to each other again after that. Um, we, you know um, so I guess I, I just thought, well I did think probably there'd be more

time, maybe there'd be a pathway to, to some kind of relationship but, but I expected him just to continue, you know I gave the $100,000 back, I expected that he was going to give it

away. Of course I didn't expect him to die shortly after. [00:17:36] Bob: And Alfred was actually in the process of giving away money he didn't even have. [00:17:42] Chris

Mancinelli: I also didn't expect to, when we went through his house, to find that he was trying to sell his house. He had um, estimates on the cost of his house, he had a real estate

agent contact, so it looked to us like he, well he was, he was back down to zero money. So it seemed he had taken loans out on his car and he had taken loans on his T--, the TVs in his

house, which I didn't, I didn't know you could take a personal loan out using a TV as collateral, but he did. So really, I guess that was more of a rock bottom. He was probably

going to sell his house to get money to continue giving away money. So I... yeah. [00:18:18] Bob: That's just such a painful ending, I mean it was almost as if he lived long enough to

give away that last penny that he had, and then he died. [00:18:25] Chris Mancinelli: Right, yeah. [00:18:26] Bob: I'm so sorry. I just have to say like not only were you so

compassionate, but you were really clever, like to say to your, your dad, well why don't we send flowers to the hospital room? Give us the address and the room number. But it's

such a kind way to try to probe where he's at. I, I just so admire what you were trying to do there. [00:18:42] Chris Mancinelli: Oh thanks, Bob. We were trying anything really, and it

was like how do we get through, what's going to make him realize? [00:18:49] Bob: Despite therapy, despite the police reports, despite it all, Chris and Christie are never able to help

Alfred fully realize what was happening to him. It really is true, sometimes you can do all the right things and still the wrong things happen. [00:19:08] Bob: What do you hope that people

can learn from hearing this story? [00:19:12] Chris Mancinelli: Um, I mean I guess that um, that they're not alone, you know, so a lot, through a lot of it you know I had Christie here

supporting me and my brother, but it is um, it is frustrating and scary and it's hard to know, like are you doing the right thing or what's the best thing to do? So um, but

sometimes it feels like really alone, there's nothing I can do and um, I guess so for other people to know like, like you said, you know there's a lot of people going through this.

I guess also, you know it started small, like uh we talked about in 2018, you know these kind of small, strange things that we just passed off and just let, let go by. I say like reflecting

maybe we should have taken stronger steps sooner. And you know anybody I, I tell that says like, you know that's hard because you don't know what's going on or what you can

do, you know and obviously we shouldn't blame ourselves. Um, but um... [00:20:09] Bob: Sometimes you just can't do anything. [00:20:12] Chris Mancinelli: Right, that's hard I

think too. That's hard to, to accept as well when you love someone and you want to help. Um, yeah, that's hard to accept. [00:20:25] Bob: Do you have any advice for maybe spouses

or family members who are watching um, somebody go through something like this/ [00:20:32] Christie Mancinelli: Oh my goodness, I, you know I wish I did. I wish I had, I wish there was

anything that I could do, that I guess, I wish there was something that I did that I feel helped, and I'm sorry that I can't give anything sage or, or definite. I mean I did help

in the background. I, I didn't get directly involved in having a dialog with Chris's dad. But I, yeah, I'd do things like, oh, I find the article that says Alexa Bliss swears

that it's not her when, when, you know when fans are being solicited online for money in her name. I would do all of that kind of stuff. I, I would be there as a sounding board, and,

and then I, I think I, there was that point where I put my foot down and I just got sick of seeing Chris bang his head against the wall. So I just tried to support as much as possible.

[00:21:18] Bob: Alfred's story has such a sad ending. Though I am convinced that the courage of Chris and Christie to share their story with us really will help someone else experience

a different ending, or at least as Chris said, help a family member going through this realize they're not alone. Chris and Christie are hardly the first people I've spoken to who

are at wit's end trying to intercede when someone they love is under the ether and just can't seem to stop sending money to online criminals. To understand why this happens and

talk a little bit more about what should be done, we have a special guest here today. Marti DeLiema, she's been on The Perfect Scam before. She's a Professor at the University of

Minnesota where she studies scams and their impact especially on older adults. [00:22:04] Marti DeLiema: Yeah, you know, Chris didn't only lose his potential inheritance, but he lost

his dad. He lost his relationship with his dad, and then his dad passed away before they could ever recover and heal that relationship. And that's a loss. That's, that's a

tremendous loss. And, and I'm sure with the anxiety and the stress, and a lot of investigators and people who work in the field throw up their hands as well, and they're like, you

know what, you want to give this money away to criminals? Fine. Here you go. Here's a check for your, your, the remaining $100,000. We're done. Um, and I know a lot of financial

institutions probably hit that point with their client where they've done what they feel they can do to hold the funds, protect the client, speak to the client, try to get them to see,

you know the, the hold that the criminals have on them. But in the end, they fire the client. They give them their check of their remaining funds and say go find another um, financial

partner, because we're done. You know we can't take you on. You're a risk to us. Um, and you know Chris didn't do that. He fought the whole, he fought gently the whole

way through. Um, and that's really hard and takes such a serious emotional toll on a person. Um, there's so much powerlessness in fraud prevention, and I think that you know the

field is starting to talk about a secondary trauma because when you are trying to protect a person who is unwilling to be protected, when you're trying to fight against systems that are

intractable and impossible to change, um, you know like getting these criminals that live overseas, you start to lose hope, and then one of the symptoms of secondary trauma is lack of

empathy, um, lack of drive, sleeplessness, stress, depression, you know, and, and I'm not surprised that, that Chris was going through that. [00:23:54] Bob: I'm glad I got that out

of you because I think that's a really important part of the story. There's no way anyone can listen to this story and not, like have their heart break for Chris and what he was

going through. But also, I bet many, many people, you know, we've all had a friend who was in a terrible relationship or couldn't quit smoking or whatever, was doing something

destructive and, and ultimately you can't, you can only do so much for, for people in that spot, right? [00:24:17] Marti DeLiema: Yeah. You could only do so much, and I think you just

have to come to terms with, you know, the little that you can do and let the rest go. You know these are really hard questions that we're just going to be facing as a society as we, as

we age and to think, you know, at what point do we continue to push and intervene, and at what point do we let go? [00:24:40] Bob: Marti and I talked about something that; well we don't

talk enough about and that's how the impact of scams like this go beyond the immediate victim. [00:24:50] Marti DeLiema: We are learning more and more about families that have really

been broken by scam victimization and where these lifelong, meaningful relationships have been shattered in just the last few years of an older adult's life. So one thing that I have

been thinking about is that with financial exploitation of older adults, you know the burden of addressing these crimes appears so much to rest on the shoulders of families. You know unlike

other forms of crime where we might have contacted the police to intervene, to investigate, this is a crime where it falls to families, and they're really taking the hit, um, both

financially, but also emotionally. So I think just as much as the victims needs counseling and support, and you know therapeutic support after the victimization, I think family members do as

well. So that would be maybe the first thing that, that people need is emotional support. [00:25:53] Bob: Marti also has some thoughts on how people like Alfred become vulnerable to online

criminals. [00:25:59] Marti DeLiema: I feel like there's a couple things to comment on here. You know one of them is that in my research and doing many interviews with victim survivors

of fraud, we often hear these stories of early life events that might impact later life vulnerability to scams like the loss of a child, like the loss of a spouse. And oftentimes, as we age

some of those life events become more common. You know it isn't unusual for an older adult to lose their spouse and become widowed. It's not unusual for an older adult to leave the

workforce and you know try to have to find this moment to redefine themselves, find a sense of purpose, find new ways to build social connections. And I think that that really just exposes

them in some ways to make them more susceptible to scams that offer to fill that gap or that loss. [00:26:59] Bob: They had actually managed to get their dad to go to therapy where the

therapist uh, echoed what you just said that unresolved pain from, from earlier in life could have played a role. But a thing I increasingly hear from folks like yourself that is surprising

me, for a long time we've said you know people who are lonely are susceptible perhaps to a crime, but, but boredom or, or lack of purpose also seems to keep coming up. Does that come up

in your research as well? [00:27:22] Marti DeLiema: It does, and I often talk about unmet needs. So absolutely you know, boredom is one of those. Lack, a lack of purpose is another.

Sometimes it can be financial, so you might be facing financial worries or insecurities and you're looking for that way to solve them, that get rich quick type way. Sometimes it, you

might have a really busy social life but none of those social connections are romantic connections so you're looking for romantic partnerships, so that's an unmet need. I mean

there's so many things that scammers have now specialized in and really crafted their methods and, and their messages to appeal to that un-need, unmet need and offer to really solve it

for the person. [00:28:05] Bob: What should family members and friends try to do for people who might be vulnerable? [00:28:11] Marti DeLiema: I think one of the most simple and most basic

things we can do is just maintain the open line of communication. Just talk to them on the phone. Just text them, you know, as often as you can find a minute, because you know the scammers

are doing the same thing. Expressing empathy is really important and just saying, you know, "I'm here. Anytime you want to talk about this or anytime you have, there's another

request or something, you can just call me first. We'll talk about it." You know really working to continue to build that rapport and trust, so that way it's much harder for

the criminals to break the trust that you've already established. [00:28:48] Bob: I think that's a really important point that most people are shocked by, I'm continuously

shocked, honestly, by how much time the scammers spend with the victims. You know 4, 5, 6, 7 phone calls a day, right? So you have to sort of try to keep up with that in some way, right?

[00:29:01] Marti DeLiema: And it's nearly impossible, you know how, how can you know, a busy working adult manage to, you know, communicate with an older family member that many times

per day, you know, especially when you have competing priorities, like work, your own spouse, if you have children. It's really, really difficult. So I think that gives scammers an

edge. [00:29:21] Bob: They've got all the time in the world, yeah. [00:29:24] Marti DeLiema: Yeah, it's their business model, right? That's, that's their job. You have

many jobs, but it's their one job. [00:29:30] Bob: How we talk with victims and vulnerable people is really important, and one recommendation Marti has is called motivational

interviewing. It's a little bit different from what your conversational impulses might be, but it seemed to come to Chris naturally. [00:29:49] Marti DeLiema: Yeah, so you know

it's really using these certain guiding principles in kind of a back-and-forth conversational interview that you really help the subject of the interview tap into their own motivation

for behavioral change. So you know by asking Chris's dad, you know, oh doesn't it, if they're in the hospital it would make more sense maybe to send flowers. Should we send

flowers? And, and you try to get that person that you're speaking to, to really kind of identify what drives them to want to make a change and to kind of reveal the holes in the stories

that they might have been telling themselves for a while. You know let's say that it's a scam where the criminal sent a bogus check, and the check was for more money than whatever

the victim thought that they were being paid for. You know if you were trying to convince this person that that check might be fraudulent, you would say, you know why would this, you know,

large company make such a big mistake on fraud? Why would they ask you, you know, a brand-new employee to send them back the money for differences? Can we talk more about that? Do we, do you

know, you know what do you think is going on here? And it's really meant to open up the conversation so that the person themselves can get to the same conclusion as the person

who's interviewing them. And it really helps protect the person's feelings from feeling like they're being attacked or questioned. You're really working together. It

seems like you're working together to get to the solution, but you're landscaping that conversation as the interviewer. You're really trying to get them to the same, to arrive

at the same conclusion that you yourself have arrived at like, this is a scam. [00:31:24] Bob: It was just so frustrating to hear Chris' story, knowing for all that time that his

father was sending money to criminals, but yet him ultimately being powerless to stop it. Do we need better tools to deal with situations like this? [00:31:38] Marti DeLiema: So you know I

think that there's always going to be this tradeoff that we have which is autonomy and independence for the older adult or protection for the older adult, and they're at odds,

right? So Chris and his family really tried that middle road for as long as possible, they held out for as long as possible until his dad was down to his last $100,000 that he would need to

support himself. And it's frustrating to me to hear that an attorney would even take on this case when it's so clearly the, the situation that this older person is, is a victim,

um, himself of scams. So again, we need more of a whole of society approach to recognize what's going on, to place the blame where it's due, which is on the criminal, you know not

on the older adult, not on the family trying to protect the older adult, but on the criminals themselves. So again, you know this is so frustrating to hear that, that it, that it went so

far. So another thing that would be helpful is other allies. So we've talked about legal tools, you know, that he worked to put in place, and you know there's financial tools that

the financial institutions can implement to also help protect the older adult so it's not just the family members trying to convince them to not withdraw the funds. If the funds are

held, that's one thing. And you know another frustrating thing about this particular case is that you know Chris was in a privileged position. You know he was an account holder named on

the account. He had the ability to withdraw those funds. Most families are not. Most families can only use words and begging and trying to reason with the older person to not withdraw the

funds. And it, so again, it's another instance where even though all these safeguards were there, they all failed. So I think that that caseworker who did maybe an initial evaluation of

Chris' father was right, you know this, an, a conservatorship would never, you know, hold muster in a court, and I think a judge would be very, very resistant to a point Chris or his

wife or the brother as a, as the guardians of their father. You know we live in a system that prioritizes autonomy, independence, and right to self-determination. That's, that's

what we've chosen as a society. And I think that that's the right choice. Will people slip through the cracks? All the time. All the time. And you know we haven't figured it

out. I don't think moving the needle all the way, or swinging the pendulum all the way into, let's just conserve everyone who shows any financial, poor financial decision making to

be conserved. And you know, if we use that, you know, argument, anyone who shows up at the casino should be, be under guardianship, right? So... [00:34:31] Bob: Hmm, we'd hit a lot of

people who invest in Wall Street too. [00:34:32] Marti DeLiema: Yeah, so I think we should continue to use conservatorship and guardianship as more as a, as a last resort, the nuclear

option. I mean that would have, that would have also shattered trust as well, and put in more protections earlier on that revolve around supported financial decision making. So and it seems,

again, it seems like this is something that Chris and his family did. You know he became um, you know someone, he was named on the account in addition to his dad. So, so those are smart

tools, having, being the power of attorney, um, you know, setting up a trust. Having conversations about money management when, before any of this becomes an issue, before scams have already

become an issue. Those are important actions that families can take now to avoid needing to turn to guardianship in the future. [00:35:24] Bob: I can't help, I'm a human being.

I'm doing exactly what I would advise everyone else not to do; (chuckles) but it's just my brain is searching for a way that there could have been a different outcome here, you

know? It just seems like there should be something else that could have been done other than what, what happened here, but um, maybe not. [00:35:38] Marti DeLiema: I mean short of maybe

family moving in with the dad, or the dad moving in with family, more kind of social engagement and social support where the criminals would just have less opportunity to be texting him all

the time or sending messages. I mean the real solution is to stop the criminals, right? Like if they can't reach their target, then they can't exploit their target. And they,

they're so sophisticated. You know looking at this back and forth of the text message thread or chat thread, you know it was grooming. She... she/he/they, the criminal network groomed

Chris' father. They, and they used love-bombing, they used gas lighting. You know it was all these, these same exact tactics and techniques we see in cases of domestic violence, and um,

emotional abuse in relationships. That was what's happening with, in these text messages. And it, so I think though the real solution is blocking the message. It, it, would there have

been a way to, to get these scammers out of the picture? [00:36:41] Bob: Taking away gadgets, taking away internet, that kind of thing? [00:36:44] Marti DeLiema: And people have tried that

before. For example, I was interviewed and a person whose family took away their smartphone, they convinced the family member, the, the victim survivor to go back to, you know your regular

old flip phone. And they reluctantly did. And great, but guess what they started to do? He used his wife's smartphone. [00:37:08] Bob: Oh God. [00:37:09] Marti DeLiema: Um, so he got on

a family member's smartphone to continue the engagement. I mean I've heard of cases, and this is going back to the Elder Abuse Forensics Center, where the criminals were so

desperate to get in touch with the victim whose phone number was changed, that they hired a driver, like a cab driver to go to the victim's house, because the criminals had their

address, and the cab driver, you know, kind of an unwitting accomplice here, handed his own cellphone over to the older adult to have a conversation with the criminal. Like the length that

they will go through to contact the victim or the, the target is just unreal, and I have heard recently that you can't, that the changing the number tactic, the phone number

doesn't work anymore. You know privacy is a myth, our information is out there, and you know just as easily as you can change your number, it'll, the new number will be in some

database that they can buy and find you again. So you know, the old tactics that we used to use and used to find effective are not working anymore because of how interconnected we are,

because of how much of our data is brokered and sold and traded. [00:38:27] Bob: Marti is working on research around better messaging that organizations can use to help prevent people from

becoming victims of crimes. [00:38:35] Marti DeLiema: Yes, so I'm working on a number of different studies around this issue of financial exploitation. We recently did a study with the

United States Postal Inspection Service. It was a randomized controlled trial of a mailed fraud prevention campaign to protect, uh individuals who had been victims of mail scams from falling

for a subsequent mail scam. And that was a large trial. It was, you know at scale, it was nationwide, and we did find that providing victims with a series of mailed fraud fighter materials

that really speak to them overcoming, overpowering fraud, working as a team, protecting their neighbors against scams, identifying reporting scams; that was kind of the messaging that we

were trying to reinforce with these repeat messages, we found that we statistically, significantly reduced their likelihood of experiencing a subsequent mail scam than the control condition.

We went with kind of an empowering message. Others might just kind of forewarn and uh individuals about the types of scams that are out there and what they should look out for, kind of an

educational-based approached, probably combining both approaches is most effective, but it's, message, the messages fade, so you, you need constant kind of booster shots of fraud

education and fraud prevention. [00:39:56] Bob: These are like vaccines, that's interesting. [00:39:58] Marti DeLiema: Very much like a vaccine. So we did a couple things in this

intervention study with our messaging. We used a consistent logo. It said, "Be a fraud fighter," and that was our messaging on every single material that went to these households.

We also referred to the receiver of the materials as one of our team, so instead of the USPIS talking to them as if they are a victim who needs to be protected, we used words like,

"Meet your team," "This is how you can join us to be a fraud fighter," so that they might feel a part of a larger collective that's fighting scams. We also used

really specific action steps that the receiver should use to engage in when they're targeted by a scam. So we gave them really precise information about where to report and when to

report. We also tried to give them a sense of purpose. We said, you know, "You can make a big difference by educating your friends and family members about scams." We also spoke to

them as if they're the experts in scams. They're the ones that are being targeted; they're the ones that are seeing these solicitations, you know, educate us. Tell us what

you're seeing. Tell us what you have noticed about scams. We also did some myth-busting after some interviews, early interviews with victims of, victim survivors of mail scams. We

learned that some of them don't really understand the consequences or the stakes of responding to some of these letters, especially if it's only $20 or $30 in the envelope. They

didn't realize how that money is going to fund these larger, broader, criminal networks, so we even sent them a brochure that on one side it had a crime board, and it showed you know,

"Scammers are sophisticated con artists, this money goes to fund criminal organizations that are also involved in weapons trafficking, drug trafficking, human trafficking," to

really kind of lay the consequences of this behavior down. Because some people likened it to like gambling at a casino. And we're like, you know, this isn't like losing your money

on a house. This is funding criminal activity. So we used a lot of different approaches, um, but this is the one that we thought would be the most effective. [00:42:09] Bob: Do all you can.

Use empathy and kindness. Don't blame victims. Don't chase them into a corner. But in the end, you can do all the right things and people you love can still get hurt. Do the right

things anyway but protect yourself too. For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan. (MUSIC SEGUE) [00:42:36] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you are not alone. Call the

AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next. Our email address at The Perfect Scam

is: [email protected], and we want to hear from you. If you've been the victim of a scam or you know someone who has, and you'd like us to tell their story, write to

us. That address again is: [email protected]. Thank you to our team of scambusters; Associate Producer, Annalea Embree; Researcher, Becky Dodson; Executive Producer, Julie Getz;

and our Audio Engineer and Sound Designer, Julio Gonzalez. Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For AARP's The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob

Sullivan. (MUSIC OUTRO) _END OF TRANSCRIPT_