Minnie had never heard of a Green Dot MoneyPak before that Friday morning a month ago, but that’s not surprising. A 73-year-old retired teacher, she hadn’t kept up with the times. She’d never owned a computer, still has a phone answering machine that uses a cassette tape and would much rather write checks than use a debit card. But if the guy on the phone told her she needed to go get a MoneyPak card for $500 right this instance, she was going to do it, and jump through whatever other hoops he might ask. He was the answer to her dreams.
He was Richard, the guy calling from Publishers Clearinghouse to tell her she’d won $960,000 and a sky-blue Mercedes.
Sounds like a scam, doesn’t it? Most people would get that right away. If somebody calls you on the phone and wants you to pay money to claim a prize, that’s always a scam. If somebody calls and wants you to give them your Social Security number, your checking account number, your credit card number … that is always a scam.
Minnie knew better. She was not dumb, and in better times she would have known Richard for a con artist, hands down. But she had been through bankruptcy, couldn’t afford the mortgage payments on her townhome and was so tired of scraping by that when Richard called with the good news about her prize, it just made sense. It was her turn to have something good happen.
Minnie is not her real name. She doesn’t want her friends in the area to know that she fell for the obvious scam, but she also wants to share her experiences so someone else might be spared her fate.
“I just feel so stupid,” Minnie said. “I was sure this was for real. I was already thinking about what I could do: pay off my mortgage and my kids’ mortgages, too, and help the grandkids with college. New carpeting, maybe some new furniture.”
That’s how Richard reeled her in. He got her thinking about what she could do with the prize money. He was smooth, recognizing he had a lonely woman on the line who could use the conversation almost as much as she could use the cash.
It was at least an hour into the call before he mentioned anything about the handling fees she would need to collect her prize. By that time her cell phone battery was running low and Minnie had Richard call back on the land line.
Unfortunately, Richard explained so nicely, she couldn’t just write them a check when they arrived later that afternoon to present her winnings. The handling fees had to be paid first, and the way to do that was to drive to the nearest Walgreen’s and buy a $500 Green Dot MoneyPak, a reloadable debit card. He kept her on the land line while her cell phone charged, then had her call him back and chatted some more as she drove to Walgreens.
In all, Richard kept her on the phone for most of four hours. After she got home from Walgreen’s, he had her read him the 14-digit code on the back of the card, the numbers right below the bold-face “fraud alert” warning not to give these numbers out to anybody.
After some more chit-chat, he said another $1,000 MoneyPak card would be needed, but she should go to Walmart for this one. Minnie gave Richard the numbers off the Walmart MoneyPak card, too.
Her checking account now was down to less than $100, but that wouldn’t matter a bit. Her ship was coming in. She was so under Richard’s spell that it didn’t seem unreasonable that only half an hour before the prize patrol was due to stop over, he was telling her she needed to get another $1,000 MoneyPak from a different store.
She told him she would get the money somehow, said goodbye to Richard and called her son-in-law, breathless with excitement, asking to borrow $1,000 to buy a MoneyPak card so she could claim her prize.
“He told me I’d been swindled,” Minnie said. “I was crushed.”
Minnie’s daughter came over after work that night to talk about it and looked at her cell phone call log, which told her Richard had been calling from Jamaica. He’d made a decent haul that day, but people have been taken for a lot more money by phone scammers.
What Richard didn’t know was the $1,500 he’d taken from Minnie also meant she had no choice but to sell her two-bedroom townhome in the neighborhood she loved where everybody knew her and her beloved dog.
She had the townhome on the market last fall for six months, but she didn’t really have her heart in selling it. Whether it was new motivation or a better market, this time she had two offers within two weeks. She accepted an offer and is slowly going through her belongings, agonizing over what she will be able to keep when she moves to a small apartment.
One thing she’s keeping for sure: two worthless Green Dot MoneyPak cards, as a reminder that if something sounds too good to be true, chances are it is.