BELFAST, Maine — A 91-year-old local woman who fell prey to a telephone scammer this month is unlikely to see the nearly $25,000 she lost ever again, according to police.
The woman, who police didn’t want to name because she’s considered the victim of a crime, has early onset Alzheimer’s. She evidently answered her phone sometime in December and spoke with a man who told her she had won more money than she could imagine, but to receive it she had to pay a percentage of the prize and the processing fee, according to Sgt. John Gibbs of the Belfast Police Department. That added up to $25,000.
The man, who represented himself as being from nearby Lincolnville, struck up a “false friendship” with the woman, police said, and told her he would come visit her after she received her winnings.
The elderly woman wrote a check for $25,000 on Dec. 28 and mailed it to the address she had been given in Auburn, California. However, the woman only had $24,100 in her checking and savings accounts at Bangor Savings Bank with a $500 overdraft. That first check didn’t clear.
Someone in California mailed the check back to the Belfast woman and the same man called her back to tell her that the check was “too much,” Gibbs said, and that she should write it for less money and send it again.
“What did she do? She wrote another check for $25,000,” the sergeant said, and mailed it back on Jan. 11.
But even though the Belfast woman still only had $24,100 in her checking account, this time around the check cleared at a Bank of America branch in California. The loss was discovered when her family took her grocery shopping on Jan. 15, and when they used her debit card to pay, they learned her account had been drained, Gibbs said.
“The sad reality is that it was most of her life savings, and I fear she may end up losing her house,” he said.
He’s working with police in California to try to get more information, but it’s a slow process. Gibbs would like to talk to the 71-year-old woman in Auburn, California, whose name was on the $25,000 check, but hasn’t been able to talk to her by telephone and police in Auburn haven’t yet interviewed her.
“We haven’t relinquished the thought that the lady in California is another pawn in the game,” Gibbs said.
Meanwhile, the Belfast woman remains besieged by letters and telephone calls from people who want her to send them money. Gibbs said that a few days ago, the Belfast woman got a call from California. This time, the man on the phone told her he could get her money back to her but she had to send him more money first. When Gibbs was at her house talking to her recently, he saw the piles of letters asking for money and answered a call from another man asking her for $100 cash for a charity helping veterans. Gibbs hung up on the caller.
“It’s a relentless attack,” he said. “You just have to constantly check on elderly people to make sure they’re not being scammed. Don’t give money over the phone. Don’t trust anybody who calls you, no matter what sob story they give. Don’t give them anything.”
Elderly people may be less suspicious of such requests, Gibbs said. They may even be dealing with previously unknown health issues, such as the Belfast woman’s early onset Alzheimer’s. Her family is involved and trying to help, but relatives are dealing with other health problems that make it complicated to find a solution.
“Honest people want to believe that everyone telling them a story is honest,” he said. “You’ve got to tell your parents and tell the elderly people who live alone about these predators.”