Why is a Nigerian Prince Calling Me?

How to Protect Yourself and Your Aging Parent From Being Scammed

By Kim Brant-Lucich, Co-Author of Survival Guide to Caring for Aging Parents.

The endless e-mails. The texts. The phone calls. Are you Maureen Johnson? Congratulations! You have a long-lost relative in Nigeria who passed away and left behind a small fortune. We have been working with local authorities to locate the next of kin and, lo and behold, we found your information. Please contact George Fetterman, Esq., and sign the attached confirmation of receipt, and $1,000,000 will be yours! Messages like this arrive electronically, by phone, and sometimes even in the U.S. Mail. There is a return address that looks legitimate, and possibly a lawyer or solicitor’s name attached to it. As you read this, you’re thinking to yourself: “What idiot would possibly fall for this?” Sadly, that “idiot” just might be your 80-year-old mother or father. They aren’t working, they may be living alone, and without a lot of activity to occupy themselves or awareness of these scams, this surprise correspondence may be enticing. After all, what do they have to lose? They can just sign the paperwork and wait for the money to arrive. Chances are that they are living on a small fixed income, and a large sum of money seems like a miracle – an opportunity to get everything they need without burdening their children.

When my mother-in-law received a phone call letting her know that she had won a million dollars from Publishers’ Clearing House, she was elated. She had been regularly mailing in responses to invitations received, and now she had actually won. She was proud of herself for getting rewarded for her efforts. She knew that she would one day be rewarded for all those envelopes she put into the mail whenever Publisher’s Clearinghouse contacted her. The person at the end of the phone wanted to know if she would be okay with being photographed when they came to the house to deliver the check the following Tuesday at noon. The only stipulation was that she would be liable for taxes on the winnings, but if she could just wire $4200 to the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Bank, they would take care of all the taxes and bring her the full check. They had one other request: Don’t tell your children. Let this be a surprise! They will be so happy and proud of you.

My mother-in-law went to the local Fred Meyer’s Grocery, which had a Western Union office inside. She wired the money to a “bank” located in a Middle Eastern country- that should have been a red flag! However, they were very helpful at the desk in assisting her to wire the money, no questions asked. They didn’t inquire what it was for. Apparently, they didn’t even ask her if she knew the recipient. They merely assisted an 80+ year old woman to send $4200 overseas. She went home, and then she called my husband (her son) and let him know about her upcoming winnings. He immediately placed a call to the FBI, who informed him that, once money has been wired, i.e., once it has been transmitted, it cannot be recovered, and there is no way to track it. My mother-in-law had just parted with $4200 that she really couldn’t spare. It should not be a surprise to anyone that Publisher’s Clearinghouse didn’t show up the following Tuesday to hand her a check and take her photo.

This story is real. I didn’t read a social media post about it, and I didn’t ask ChatGPT or Claude to find me a real story. I lived through this with my husband about ten years ago. At that time, and in more recent years, I have heard numerous stories of scams that target the elderly or others suspected of being gullible or fearful. A voice at the end of a telephone says, “Grandma, I’m in Mexico, and I’m being held in Jail. I need $10,000 for bail money.” The grandmother says, “I didn’t know you were going to Mexico,” and her grandchild says, “I just came with some friends for a holiday weekend.” Then Grandma says, “It doesn’t sound like you,” and her grandson says, “I have a cold.” Grandma then rushes off to her local Western Union office or bank and sends the money. This is a well-documented scam and has been written about enough that people are finally catching on. Nonetheless, if you do have an older parent, and you have children (aka, their grandchildren), be sure you inform your parent that your son or daughter will not ever call them from Mexico or any other place asking to be bailed out of jail.

In these times, most people have smartphones and computers. My 95-year-old mother had a smartphone and was very computer savvy. Occasionally, she would receive a suspicious e-mail. She always called my husband or me to ask about it. We would tell her not to ever click on links in emails and, if something really looked legitimate, to forward it to us so we could review it more closely. We would hover the mouse over the sender’s name and see that the email address was not, indeed, from Bank of America. Moreover, we would point out the subtle typos or grammatical errors, clearly indicating that the sender’s native language was something other than English.

We warned my mother, as we officially warned co-workers in our days as information technology professionals, that she should never click on any attachments to an email, or links in the email, from any sender she did not know. Email is the most vulnerable “front door” for sending a virus over the internet or over a telephone. People often click on links from a sender that looks like their bank, entering their name, email, password, and account information. And then, in no time, they may find that their bank account has been emptied. Banks now warn their customers to never, under any circumstances, give away their password or click on a link that requires the password to be entered. Over time, my mother figured out how to identify the scams herself.

My mother-in-law had been retired for much longer than my mother, who worked until she was 80 years old. My mother-in-law had a landline telephone and didn’t use a computer. The good news was that it reduced the opportunity for electronic scams, but it meant that the telephone and mailbox were trusted sources, and not something we could oversee from two states away.

There is a lesson in all of this. Whether or not your parent is tech savvy, a common thread with scams is that they prey on people who are alone, older, and trusting. A plea from a grandchild in need, or the promise of a large sum of unexpected money, will draw them in before they have a chance to really think it through. After all, what kind of person would be so cruel as this, to take advantage of an “old lady”?

So, whether you are caring for a parent or simply taking care of yourself and living alone, a good rule of thumb is to remember that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Windfalls do not arrive via email or a phone call. Your grandchild will not telephone you to help bail them out of a Mexican jail. Publisher’s Clearinghouse will not ask you to wire the taxes on your winnings, and, sadly, you are unlikely to ever win the Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes. Take precautions for yourself and your family. Teach your parents and children. Always be cautious. No matter how kind or thoughtful you may be, there are others who are not so kind. Beware.