College Professor’s Retirement Stolen in Nightmare Scam

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[00:00:01] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam.

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[00:00:04] Into the box we go. Bank of America with a summary page from the bank and my notes on it. Bank of America, 10,000 plus 9,439 plus 5,360, and Chase and the receipt is for $25,520 and I kept the 11 cents. There they are, into the box. And I will secure it with tape. (taping up box)

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[00:00:52] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.

(harp music)

[00:01:02] Bob: You're listening to the peaceful, beautiful sounds of Linda Khandro playing the harp. Linda has been a teacher for decades. She's a mom and she's a musician. You could say her musical sound is ethereal, almost spiritual, certainly comforting. And that's what Linda is good at, comforting people. She has spent years playing her harp at hospice facilities helping soothe the dying in their final moments. It's a beautiful vocation, and we'll get to that. But Linda's here to talk with us today about the day her life was turned upside-down when a threatening phone call led to a 4½ month nightmare that forced her to retire from the job she loves, saw her buying gold bars and putting them into a stranger's car, and, well she thinks the whole experience could have killed her. Here is Linda's incredible story.

[00:02:03] Linda Khandro: I stumbled into harps quite by accident; it was not deliberate. But uh that about the late 1970s and it took about another 15 or so years before I played more seriously. And in playing more seriously, I also put myself through a program that helps musicians learn some basic skills for playing for people who are hospice patients, or not even hospice patients, but playing in hospitals. I've played for dialysis patients and chemo patients as well as the hospice, you know, end of life situation. I found out that the harp was really an ideal instrument for that setting, especially for somebody who may be close to dying. And it's just the way the instrument resonates in space in the room. And the sound, especially of the bass strings, has got a long duration, a long time for it to die away so to speak. And that makes it very amenable to people who are in the process of leaving life. They can follow that sound if you like.

[00:03:17] Bob: Yeah, the harp is such a special sound.

[00:03:19] Linda Khandro: It it really is, that's the thing. It is actually, I'm going to jump out here and uh, put myself on the line. Um, there's really no other instrument like it.

[00:03:29] Bob: It has a sort of ancient feel to it which I, I suspect also contributes to what you're saying, but I just want to dwell on it for a minute before, because it's quite profound that you would spend all this time to be with people who most of the time were strangers, right?

[00:03:43] Linda Khandro: Yeah.

[00:03:44] Bob: ... to help them pass with music. I mean what is that, how do you describe that experience to people?

[00:03:49] Linda Khandro: Oh, Bob, that's some, that's a long story in itself, but I'll try to make it short. It changes me. It started to change me almost the first day I walked into somebody's room for the first time every playing for somebody who was actively dying. And I had this rather bizarre experience. And you've got to, I mean I know you understand, I'm a scientist, right. But I kind of pay attention to what I feel, but my feeling on sitting behind the harp and you, you're playing a harp and you're, it's in contact with your body, so a little bit like a cello or a double bass. You know your, your core, your, your skeletal system is in contact with this vibrating wood and strings. And I had this strange sense that the woman who was dying, and I didn't know she was dying right at that moment but I found out later, she had been talking to her granddaughter until I came in and started to play -- she died five minutes later and I didn't know about it for the next 20 minutes. I was just playing. And when I was told that she was gone, and the granddaughter was there, you know, being comforted by a nurse who had come in, and the granddaughter came up and gave me this massive hug and said, "Granny died 5 minutes after you started playing." Well I almost started crying at that point, my feeling was the harp was a bridge that had provided a pathway for this woman to leave her life.

[00:05:26] Bob: Those kinds of profound experiences kept happening during the decade or so that Linda played at hospice facilities.

[00:05:35] Linda Khandro: And after that, I started having unusual experiences where I'd go to a hospice location and the caregiver would say to me, "Oh, I'm so sorry you've gone all the way here because uh, Mabel, my mother's name, just died um, 10 minutes ago and you don't need to be here." I said, "Oh I do. I do need to be here. Not for me, but for Mabel and the others around." And so I played for my half an hour and then I went home. And that happened again. So I can't look at those experiences and just dismiss them. But as a scientist, you know I'm, I'm on, I'm on a fence a little bit. But I don't need to be on that fence, I just need and want to experience what it's like to help somebody at that point in their life. If I'm in a hospital or a more public environment, the sound of the harp would go 20, 30 feet down the hallway. And then caregivers, nurses, uh orderlies and so on would find themselves leaning in the doorway in somebody's room. And I'd turn around and there were two or three people listening. And they all had the same thing to say which is, this is so relaxing. Now they might say this is so healing, but you see, I can't go there. But this is so relaxing and so tender, and we're so grateful to have this.

[00:07:08] Bob: You probably heard Linda mention she's a scientist. At her day job she's a teacher. A trained geologist, she's had to teach pretty much every science subject during her 30 year plus career.

[00:07:23] Linda Khandro: I teach geology, oceanography, astronomy, meteorology, astrobiology, not so much anymore, and environmental science.

[00:07:32] Bob: That's a lot of science.

[00:07:33] Linda Khandro: Yeah.

[00:07:34] Bob: She taught mostly in colleges like Shoreline Community College outside Seattle, an idyllic campus which sits high above the Puget Sound, but she's also taught young children and she's even taught teachers.

[00:07:48] Linda Khandro: Host a weekend gathering where we worked on all of these different hands-on activities, and then let them fly. And so the teachers and astronomers would make a commitment to each other that they would get together once a month with the kids in the classroom, and uh one of the best examples of how that worked was to teach and guide actually um, a study of the phases of the moon. And you can do that very simply with a set of Styrofoam balls and a bunch of pencils.

[00:08:24] Bob: I remember this.

[00:08:25] Linda Khandro: (laughs)

[00:08:27] Bob: It was the end of another busy semester last June. Linda was taking a break from grading, tending to her garden, finally getting some sun after another rainy winter and spring in Seattle when she walked inside to log into her computer so she could check on her students. And...

[00:08:43] Linda Khandro: So when I opened my laptop, there was this sign, there was this flashing message. So straight out of nowhere.

[00:08:50] Bob: Not quite out of nowhere. Linda had recently received a couple of messages from her Bank that there had been some suspicious activity on her bank accounts, so she was already on a bit of high alert.

[00:09:02] Linda Khandro: Well it was June the 2nd, and that was a big flashing screen on my laptop directing me to call an 888 number; I needed to call this number to get it fixed. This person went into my computer, I could see them rooting around and looking at IP addresses and so on. And then they said, "Okay, it's all fixed. All ready. Now you owe us..." blah, blah, blah, a certain amount of money. I was set to pay that to begin with, and then he went on to say, and "I have to now redirect our call to a federal official."

[00:09:37] Bob: A federal official from the Federal Trade Commission she said. This new person even showed Linda a badge with the name Lina Khan, Head of the Agency, and then this important person from the FTC had something terrifying to say. She said that Linda was under investigation and the investigation revealed there were warrants for Linda's arrest for terrible things.

[00:10:01] Linda Khandro: One was, there was an arrest warrant out for me on the basis of money laundering, And I put this now in quotes, "The federal government needs to secure your funds."

[00:10:14] Bob: Linda is stunned, scared, feeling helpless. The federal government needs to secure her funds? Linda has no idea what that even means.

[00:10:27] Linda Khandro: Oh, Bob, I can't tell you how that felt. It was, it was terrifying because on the one hand, of course I'm not under arrest. I haven't done anything wrong, but there was more to the threat. So I was also told I had to withdraw money, and then I was told that I could not tell anybody about what I was about to do.

[00:10:47] Bob: Don't tell anybody, and do what I say, this FTC official says or you'll be arrested. The federal government already has you under surveillance.

[00:10:59] Linda Khandro: She said, "I can see the front of your house, and it looks like there's a red and white rocket in front of one of the windows." Well, in fact, it's a hummingbird feeder. And she said, "I can see your car," and that was because the garage door was open, "and you've got a red Toyota car." And she said, "We have FBI agents watching you all the time right now to protect you." All right.

[00:11:23] Bob: That's spooky. Were those, those details were accurate?

[00:11:26] Linda Khandro: They, they were accurate, and so that, that just threw my fear into overdrive.

[00:11:31] Bob: In order to deal with the money laundering charges and everything else, this official says, Linda is going to have to move all her cash into a new account that the government can observe. That means withdrawing the $20,000 she has in her credit union account right away. It's a strange request, but Linda has never been in any kind of trouble like this, and she just wants to fix it.

[00:11:54] Linda Khandro: The solution for that is to do what they say, and then when all of the, when my, and she kept calling it "my case," when my case was closed, I would get all the money back.

[00:12:05] Bob: So Linda, shaking, gripping her steering wheel tightly heads to her credit union.

[00:12:12] Linda Khandro: And then, as I was driving down to the bank, she's still on the phone with me, and she was, I was not going to do this without her being on the phone, and it was on speakerphone at first, and then when I got into the bank, I had to turn speakerphone off. But she said, "Oh yeah, I see where you're going, and you're making this turn and you're making that turn." And then I pushed her back and I said, "I just made a wrong turn because I'm really nervous. What did I do?" And she said, "Oh, well you turned down such and such a street and that was the wrong street." So at that point I thought, okay, well they are watching me.

[00:12:44] Bob: The next instruction is to send that money to the people she's talking to via a bitcoin machine that's in a small market nearby.

[00:12:53] Bob: Well what's it like to be in a convenience store and feeding bills into a machine like this?

[00:12:57] Linda Khandro: It's terrifying.

[00:12:59] Bob: Are people watching you?

[00:13:00] Linda Khandro: It's terrifying. People were walking in and walking out, walking behind me. I've got all this money in my pocket in $100 bills, and there's 2--, there's 244-dollar bills. For bitcoin, you have to, I mean I've never ever, ever, ever dealt with bitcoin before. Never, and no, and absolutely no interest. So this was very foreign. Um, I, one $100 bill at a time, ka-ch-ch-chink, ka-ch-ch-chink, ka-ch-ch-chink, and not even as fast as that. It seemed to take forever. People were walking past behind me, I just was shaking.

[00:13:39] Bob: So Linda puts every last dollar she had in her checking account into that bitcoin machine, but the woman on the phone calls her back to say that's not enough. The government needs to secure the money that's in her retirement account as well.

[00:13:55] Linda Khandro: So um, over the next few days, now I'm looking at June the 7th, which happens to be my birthday, so that couldn't have been much worse. I arranged with the retirement company which is called TIAA, and I said, "I need to withdraw $100,000 from my accounts." And I had several accounts with TIAA. And right away, you know they asked the good question which is, "Well, can you tell us what you need this money for? This is a lot; this is a big withdrawal." That was going to be about a quarter of my, a fifth of my entire savings there. And I said, "Well, yeah, I've got some plans with my children and housing..."

[00:14:36] Bob: Because she's still working, Linda actually has to take out a loan against her retirement balance to get that amount, and she is so distraught by her bitcoin experience that she tells the FTC person, "There must be some other way to send this money." There is.

[00:14:54] Linda Khandro: And the plan for that was a driver, an agent would come to my house, not, they would not knock at my door. They would park across the street from my house, roll down the window of the driver's side backseat window, and I would take a package of $70,000 boxed up, sealed, no label, just boxed up and sealed in a bag and drop that bag into that backseat. So that's what I did.

[00:15:22] Bob: Somebody drove up to your house? That's also sounds really unnerving.

[00:15:26] Linda Khandro: Yes, absolutely was.

[00:15:29] Bob: God.

[00:15:30] Linda Khandro: I, I, that's the thing. Everything about this was unnerving, unsettling, terrifying. I mean pick any adjective you want or adverb. Yeah, it was, the whole thing was horrifying.

[00:15:43] Bob: During July, she repeats the process several times. The instructions become more and more elaborate. In one case, she's told to film herself, placing tens of thousands of dollars into a box. Here's audio from that video.

[00:15:59] (video audio) Into the box we go. Bank of America with a summary page from the bank and my notes on it. Bank of America 10,000, plus 9,439, plus 5,360. And Chase, and the receipt is for $25,520 and I kept the 11 cents. There they are into the box, and I will secure it with tape. (taping up box)

[00:16:47] Bob: The next time Linda goes to her bank to withdraw a bunch of cash; a bank manager asks her more pointed questions. "Are you being pressured to do this?"

[00:16:57] Linda Khandro: I said, no. See that's, that's the thing, is I was forced into this situation of lying, constantly lying, constantly keeping up a, a façade. And this woman was constantly saying, "Oh, you're doing fine, Linda, you're doing a great job. Be confident, be happy. You know you're doing; you're doing just great."

[00:17:19] Bob: Be confident, be happy, you're doing great. Linda just keeps on following her instructions to a "T." And she's told she must send the entire balance of her retirement account, about $200,000 to a place this FTC official requires. Well there is only one way for her to access the full retirement balance, TIAA tells her, and Linda has to make a painful, painful decision.

[00:17:49] Linda Khandro: And they said, "Well you have to be retired." So I reported that back to the impersonator and her response was, "Well, then you have to retire."

[00:17:57] Bob: Then you have to retire, wow.

[00:17:59] Linda Khandro: That's right, that's right, "You have to retire now." And I’d been, I had been teaching for the state for 31, actually almost 32 years, 31 years and a bit, successfully, was doing well. Not just for me financially, but my students were, were doing well. And the colleges kept hiring me back every quarter. And so I had a, I had a good career going. And suddenly I was going to drop it, just like that. So on the first of August, I wrote a letter of retirement to all the colleges and I said, "I'm sorry I have to do this suddenly, but um, I am going to retire." And that was official as of August 31st.

[00:18:36] Bob: No, unemployed, Linda withdraws pretty much every last dollar she has saved during those 31 years.

[00:18:45] Linda Khandro: So that meant the last check that went out for TIAA was for 278,981. Almost 56 went to the IRS and so 223 went into my new Chase account.

[00:19:03] Bob: And Linda is told she has to send the money using a new method.

[00:19:09] Linda Khandro: Having a third car or another, or a car come up to my house a third time and pick up these dropped packages, packages of um, cash dropped into the back of the car, they didn't want to do that. And so a couple of days later she called me back and she said, "I went to Treasury, and Treasury says we have to have gold." Oh man, are you kidding? So I went back to the bank and I said, "I have to withdraw all of this money that I just deposited and order up gold."

[00:19:40] Bob: She has to order gold bars and then send them along to the FTC.

[00:19:49] Linda Khandro: And the amount of gold that came closest to the 233,000 was three bars of 99.9999 percent pure gold that would cost 181... excuse me, $191,000. So I did that. And the meantime, you know, I'm just, I'm shaking and the gold arrived at my house by UPS packaging, very well packaged up. I could hardly open the box. Three bars of pure gold and that was also picked up in front of my house the same way the cash had been picked up. I did the same thing, dropped the package in.

[00:20:29] Bob: The gold bars delivered, all her assets now moved into this government account, Linda thinks the episode is over, that she'll soon get all the money back. And then that's what she's told.

[00:20:41] Linda Khandro: And by that time it was uh the middle of September or so. The money was all gone, and I had no job. After the gold was, was um, let go, then there was quite a long bit of silence, like maybe a week of almost no response, so suddenly in, on October 10th, there was a message from her saying, "Your case has been closed, Linda. Somebody's going to come by your house with documents for you next week, October 15th. On October 17th, somebody will come by with cashier's checks for your money." That was October 10th. Then um, a day or so later she called me back again saying, "We have to move the dates out to November 3rd and November 5th." And then I erupted again, and I said, "No, you can't do that. I've got plans. I'm trying to make a trip to visit my daughters over Christmas. I need that money now," like not in an extra week, but now. And she texted back, "Well I'll see what I can do."

[00:21:42] Bob: Linda starts to get upset with the woman that says she's from the FTC who tells her that she has to lower her voice.

[00:21:50] Linda Khandro: "Please control your emotion." Now she's got over $400,000 of mine. I have been on the hook for 4½ months. I've been terrorized by this for 4½ months. And she's telling me to control my emotion. That's not about to happen.

[00:22:05] Bob: What is about to happen is a chance encounter with a small piece of information that changes everything.

[00:22:14] Linda Khandro: Everything was still silent for another few days and then on October 18th at night, I came home, I found on my kitchen island, a card, a very, very helpful warning card from Chase Bank that I had picked up from that bank back in July when I first opened the accounts. One side it says, uh "What to watch out for if you think there's a scam." The other side says, "How to deal with it if you think it's a scam." And in that instant, I mean the moment was digital, is that the word? Going from 0 to 1, 0 to 1 so fast, all of a sudden, I saw the entire picture, the entire story, all of a sudden, just like that. It was like the walls of my house blew down. And I understood exactly what had happened, when, where, how, who. Everything was completely exposed.

[00:23:05] Bob: Linda realizes at that moment the caller is a liar. All her money has been stolen. Everything. Even her retirement savings. She's even quit her job, ended her career for no reason.

[00:23:21] Linda Khandro: And the first thing I did was start writing a report to the FTC to say, "This is what has happened." I gave them a synopsis of the, the whole event, month, 4½ months, "and your, the chair of your department, your division of the federal government has been impersonated." I copied that to Washington senators, Maria Cantwell and then I started pushing it everywhere I could, I reported everywhere I could, FBI, state officials, local officials, went to the police the next night, local police. Just pushed it everywhere that I could, as fast as I could, and the overriding emotion behind that was the rage, absolute, absolute rage. I've never felt that angry in my life ever. It was, it was just rage.

[00:24:10] Bob: The rage is so real because at that moment, Linda realizes that these criminals are capable of anything even, in her mind, murder.

[00:24:22] Linda Khandro: It was a vision in my mind of somebody, they don't have to be my age, they could be older, they could be younger, but somebody who maybe had an illness, a physical or an emotional or a mental vulnerability, and they were trapped in one of these things and they died as a result of the stress; stroke, heart attack, whatever. In my mind that makes these scammers not just thieves but murderers. And I went a step further; and what if somebody were to go through something like this and take their own life? In my mind, that makes these scammers murderers.

[00:24:58] Bob: You, you feel like you, if you haven't been murdered, that somebody else in your situation might as well have been murdered.

[00:25:04] Linda Khandro: Right. You got it.

[00:25:07] Bob: We do know that some scam victims are so distraught by the experience that they engage in self-harm. This is a good time to remind listeners that if you or someone you love is in crisis, you can call or text 988 right now and a professional will provide immediate help. Linda spends the next few weeks putting that rage to work, furiously filling out complaints and reports, but then...

[00:25:32] Linda Khandro: And, and then after about a week it slipped into grief, and then I couldn't stop crying. And I went up to the bank where these people were so concerned for me, and I walked straight in, and I said, "You were right. You were right, and I was lying to you the whole time." And to the other bank, "You were right. I was lying to you the whole..." and to the other bank.

[00:25:50] Bob: Did you actually talk to some of the, like the person who was trying to talk you out of it?

[00:25:54] Linda Khandro: Yes.

[00:25:55] Bob: What was that like?

[00:25:56] Linda Khandro: Oh, it was very hard. They were handing me boxes of Kleenex, you know, because I, I had to, I had to own up, well the, the owning up to the lying was not a problem, that was okay, I've got to do that. But watching them go through a version of my anguish was really hard, because they were doing everything they could to get information from me, and they couldn't get it.

[00:26:26] Bob: You have just had your, your life turned upside-down and $400,000 stolen from you, but you are thinking about how hard it is for the bank manager to hear this story.

[00:26:37] Linda Khandro: Yeah, yeah.

[00:26:39] Bob: Linda then goes around apologizing to everyone she lied to during the past 4½ months. And she develops a credo that still guides her now.

[00:26:51] Linda Khandro: I had to own everything. Yes, I did this, I didn't know what I was doing. I don't know these things; I don't live in this world or in that kind of a world. And I found myself having to sort of rely on a catch phrase, which I don't like catch phrases as a rule, but it works for me, and that is, you don't know what you don't know. And I really and truly did not know that this even existed in the world. Really and truly. That's the bald truth of that.

[00:27:24] Bob: You don't know what you don't know. She carries that message around and it comforts her, but the hardest part at this stage is telling her children.

[00:27:33] Linda Khandro: They were pretty frightened. I had written an email to all my family, most of whom knew that something terrible was happening but I couldn't tell them. So I had written to my brother, my sister, my, my daughters, friends, everybody that I could cram into one email. They did get the printed version right away, like that first night. But then when I talked to my oldest and my youngest at the same time, you know they, they were like me. They couldn't stop crying either. But it was very, very difficult. I know some of their finances are tied up with mine, and that means that I have hurt them by having to pull back on some commitments I had made. All three of them are using language now like, and again this is, this is hard, right, hard to say. "We will never let you be destitute, Mom." I mean how can you hear that from your children? But that's what they said and that's what they mean, so since October we've had some really good conversations, and we have a couple of platforms where we can talk in, at, in, groups to each other even when we're thousands of miles away. So they, you know, they are 100% supportive as are my friends, and I guess, I guess the support that I need so much is something that I never would have been able to ask for if the situation wasn't as dire as it is.

[00:28:54] Bob: So how is Linda now? Well she is facing a long road to recovery. The criminals did steal pretty much everything she has financially and in other ways too.

[00:29:10] Linda Khandro: I have no savings anymore, essentially. And no work. I had to start looking for work, and I tried to get unemployment insurance and worked on that for about four months, and I finally gave up on them just a few weeks ago, but I found a food bank, uh-huh, so I'm getting groceries for free every, every two weeks and other support from local entities here who support people who have run into hardships like this. And there's no such thing as pride in my life. The satisfaction that I used to have in the work that I did, or the music, or the artwork is fragmental. It comes and goes. This whole experience and these, this woman that I was talking to basically gutted everything. She took everything. Not just the money but yeah, my self-confidence, and sense of competence and sense of worth, and sense of honesty. She stripped it all away. And that's what frightens me the most in terms of other people who might not withstand that.

[00:30:11] Bob: Linda has managed to get back a couple of small teaching assignments so she has part-time work, and she's finding help in unexpected places.

[00:30:23] Linda Khandro: And I really do have an extraordinary, wonderful support system here. It's, it's a little fragmented, but I'll just give you one short example, is the second of two benefit concerts being held by musicians for me is taking place this Sunday, day after tomorrow. And I'll bring my harp, I'll do some playing, other people will bring whatever they play and sing, and these are people that I've known for a long time or they may be totally brand new people, and in the break of the two-hour event, I get up there in the middle of the room and I tell my damn story, and it won't take an hour, I won't have an hour. I have figured out how to do it in 10 minutes. But then there's a bit of Q&A so there's another 5 or 10, or see me after, or here's my email. Call me.

[00:31:13] Bob: Every person who hears you describe that you're doing this, is going to think, "My God, she's brave."

[00:31:18] Linda Khandro: No, I, I know I hear that, Bob, and thank you, and that's very, that's very generous. I have had enough pain and enough sense of abandonment and isolation in my life that this does not feel like bravery to me. This just feels like I have to still live in this world. I'm 76, right? I'm planning to go for another 30 years, right, wish me luck, right?

[00:31:46] Bob: But there is, just maybe, a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel. It's possible that some of the crime reports she's filled out will make a difference. That money set aside for IRS tax payments, she might be able to get that back. A member of Congress has offered to work with the IRS on her behalf.

[00:32:05] Linda Khandro: That is very important because as of now, $81,000 is tied up as withholding tax, and I need that money. So there is movement on that score. It's like the ice flow is starting to break up.

[00:32:21] Bob: The ice flow is starting to break up. There is help coming from other places too; one is a part-time tutoring job with young children that she's picked up. The kids' boundless energy brings her peace in a way that is oddly familiar.

[00:32:37] Linda Khandro: They're young, and they're very boisterous and eager to show off what they can do, but then they get tired and they want to do something else.

[00:32:45] Bob: (laughs)

[00:32:47] Linda Khandro: The students have to be excited when they come back into your room, and I mean, that just happened yesterday. This little fellow is a great one, a little boy came jumping and hooting and hollering down the hall into my room. And he's got this big grin all over his face. So I'm kind of looking around thinking what? Is this for me? It's, you know, doesn't pay as well, but I'm loving the kids. And that goes a long way. That's like being in the hospice rooms and watching the hospice patients feel better for the music that I've left them with. And there are these little kids who, you feel pretty good with the tutoring that I'm doing with them. So all of these things are working, they're small bits and pieces, but they're working. And they're starting to fill the gaps that were left from these, you know, massive holes of those 4½ months.

[00:33:38] Bob: I asked Linda if anything could have helped her see the criminals for what they were sooner and what advice she might have for anyone going through a situation like this.

[00:33:48] Linda Khandro: Yeah, well see that's the, that's the $400,000 question, isn't it?

[00:33:53] Bob: It is.

[00:33:54] Linda Khandro: Because given what I didn't know, it wouldn't, there wasn't, there wouldn't be anything because I was trapped by what I did not know. Now that may sound like, how does that English even work? But it's that same stupid phrase of what you don't know what you don't know. I did not know, and if somebody had been able to sit down with me, at some point in those 4½ months, and say, "Here is what happened to you. Don't try to tell me anymore lies, Linda. This is what happened to you." Honestly, I don't know whether I would have been able to, to listen to that because the entrapment was so complete. I, so yeah, uh anesthetized. Under the ether. Um, that's a really, that's a super important question and I've pondered that question, um, in some of the worst moments like, well, was there a moment when that could have happened when somebody could have succeeded at that? The time for it to have been effective for me would have been after that first withdrawal deposit. That would have been the ideal time. Like right at the very beginning. But it didn't, and it just kept getting tighter, you know the noose kept getting tighter and tighter and tighter.

[00:35:16] Bob: A conversation with one of her daughters helped Linda realize that the noose she talks about, well that might have been formed, in part, even before the criminals got her on the phone that first time.

[00:35:30] Linda Khandro: She wanted to know what it was that I felt about myself that made me vulnerable to these people who could attack me so badly and hold me silent. And I really didn't know how to answer that at first, but that is a really, really important question. It took us about 2½ to 3 hours, but I, I dug, and she kept digging, and we went straight into, deep into my very young childhood, and it was like that thread then from very early childhood all the way up to, you know, just two months ago or the beginning of the scam if we want to go to early June. I could see the connections there. The connections between my wanting to please, my having difficulty getting things, getting, not just things, but relationships. I couldn't get relationships right when I was young, just really had trouble with relationships. My need for companionship as well as recognition was huge when I was young. And I had none of those. So I've been vulnerable probably all my life to being manipulated. That's the sum of that. And I think I'm not alone in that. now these people did, had no idea of my childhood. They had no idea at all. It was only with my daughter's interview that I began to see that deeper connection. And I would, I would be surprised if other people don't have things from childhood relationships that kind of creep in and allow them to be vulnerable.

[00:37:09] Bob: I mean everyone does, right?

[00:37:11] Linda Khandro: Oh, well I think so.

[00:37:12] Bob: Nobody had a perfect childhood.

[00:37:13] Linda Khandro: (chuckles) That's right. It certainly was true in my family. We were very, very unhappy and, and we had a very logical reason for being unhappy. My mother was dying of MS from the time I was 10. And um, 18 years later it took her, but in the meantime, we were growing up and trying to cope and not doing a good job of it. I, I didn't do a good job of it. And, and I later went on to just make one mistake after another after another after another and didn't really kind of come into my own abilities and strength until I started going back to college, and I was almost 40 at that point.

[00:37:51] Bob: So if, let's say someone's listening right now who is in the middle of a scam like this, is there anything that you can think to say to that person?

[00:38:00] Linda Khandro: Oh man, well I think I know what I would want. I would want to be able to sit down with them in person, I would have a very large box of Kleenex at hand, or tissues. I would want them to tell me the entire story from beginning to end and see if there is a hinge point where they could still change the, the scenario. Not where they could have changed it. This is where could have, would have is not helpful. You would have to see somebody exactly where they are and say, okay, you've now withdrawn $100,000 from your savings account, you feel like you've lost that, but these people are asking you for more and more and more and more and more. My recommendation to them would be simply, don't do it. Just don't do it. Don't answer the phone. Make note, make note of the phone numbers when you get those, that's what cellphones will do for us, right? You can see the number. Don't answer it. Don't answer anything you don't know. Don't reply to an email. The main, main, I think the main thing, Bob, if there's put it in as few words as possible is do not engage. Just do not engage. Don't, and don't challenge them. Because by challenging them saying, "Oh, I think you're a scammer, and I think you're a, you're doing these really nasty things." So just don't, don't even do that. Don't give them anything of yourself because when you give them something of yourself, you're not going to get that back. You're likely just to get into more hot water because they'll just keep threatening you.

[00:39:38] Bob: And, and don't engage, hang up.

[00:39:41] Linda Khandro: Don't engage.

[00:39:42] Bob: Don't engage and talk to a friend. One really strong sign of a scam is the demand for silence and isolation. Perhaps you've seen the recent story written by Charlotte Cowles, a personal finance reporter who had $50,000 stolen from her in almost the exact same way that Linda's crime happened. Charlotte also writes about the isolation, the fear, the pressure about dropping off a box of cash into a car. So this particular scam is clearly making the rounds. We wanted to understand more about it, and about the emotional component of the crime so we've invited Peter Lichtenberg onto the show. He's a clinical psychologist and professor who also directs the Wayne State University Institute of Gerontology. He calls what happened to both Linda and Charlotte, the government imposter scam, and there is a reason it works.

[00:40:34] Peter Lichtenberg: There's some speculation that's because of uh growing up in a generation of, of great respect for authority, but I think the other factors about this situation are the fear that's generated and the immediacy in which a response is required, such as the wiring of the money, and so forth. And thirdly, interestingly, to really heighten the psychological vulnerability of the, of the victim, secrecy is invoked. So there's no one to talk to about this situation. If you believe that this is a person of authority truly is uh commanding you not to break the law and talk to anybody else. So you've got the government imposter, fear, immediacy, and secrecy. Those are just incredibly powerful in terms of eliciting quite a lot of psychological vulnerability and response to a potential scam.

[00:41:34] Bob: Some Americans are loathe to talk about money too, even with their own children. And that can be an opening for criminals.

[00:41:42] Peter Lichtenberg: I think in this case, the secrecy uh which is often the key to uh scams in which people are victimized for lots of money, the secrecy is tied to uh either you know fear of being penalized if you don't keep the secret, but also because finances are by and large a top taboo topic, so it's not, not that surprising that people would adhere to someone saying, "Keep this secret, don't talk about it."

[00:42:10] Bob: I, I can't get my parents to talk to me about their bank account. It’s just something they didn’t do.

[00:42:13] Peter Lichtenberg: Yes, exactly. There, there really are a lot of communication privacy issues around money for this generation particularly.

[00:42:21] Bob: The threat of being exposed as a criminal in connection with a horrible crime is also really powerful.

[00:42:28] Peter Lichtenberg: That is hugely threatening, of course, um, and if you believe that this is an authority figure telling you, hey, whether it's a mix-up or not, there's an arrest warrant for you, and by social threat, I mean, you know if that were to come out, indeed if that were true and it came out publicly, it can really ruin a person's social network, and it can really ruin this uh social support that they receive from others. And I think that's a big part of this because all in all, between uh the demand from an authority figure, the secrecy, the tech scam, the social threat, the victim has really lost status, their sense of status, their sense of being a competent uh, person, and that's exactly what the scammers are trying for. And it's exactly what our research has shown that psychological vulnerability can be a key factor in the likelihood of being engaged in a scam.

[00:43:33] Bob: Another element that makes people more likely to be a victim of a scam, Peter says, is social isolation or depression.

[00:43:40] Peter Lichtenberg: Psychological vulnerability made people in two of the states that we did two and three times uh, more likely. And we define that as a combination of higher level of depression, depressive symptoms, and a lower sense of social status or what we call behavioral confirmation where you feel like other people are giving you feedback that what you do is important. And that combination alone really projected you know 2½ to 3 times the likelihood of being involved in a scam.

[00:44:16] Bob: I mean 2½ to 3 times, that's an enormous increase.

[00:44:20] Peter Lichtenberg: Yes, yes it was.

[00:44:22] Bob: What does that kind of isolation or depression look like?

[00:44:25] Peter Lichtenberg: I think uh what you would find in their life is less social support. So there may be a lot of people around, there may not be, but they don't feel like they have much social support. They don't feel like they have people to turn to. Less sense of purpose. They don't feel like what they're doing is really important to them or to anybody else. And a real loss of status, so perhaps they had uh roles that they felt were really important whether their family or work roles and then those feel diminished at this time. And, and then, you know you'd have to ask somebody also these kinds of questions, whether they seem downhearted and blue, more of the time lack of energy, not enjoying things like they used to, those kinds of depressive symptoms. Well I think, and it may be a good way of putting it, Bob, is I think people feel invisible.

[00:45:22] Bob: Hmm, sure.

[00:45:23] Peter Lichtenberg: That's really what I kind get as a sense of the psychological vulnerability. People who used to feel like the world saw them, feel invisible now. And um, they really have to try to combat that in a few different ways. You know, aging and successful aging has had this uh theory SOC, S-O-C, Selectivity, Optimization with Compensation. Basically it says we all have to adapt to things that happen to us as we get older. There may be, you know, just even uh, me, wearing reading glasses and, and so forth. We, we adapt, we optimize through compensation how we adapt. And I think that people who are feeling invisible, it's not easy, but they do have to push themselves to adapt whether if their, you know community mobility is, is limited because they don't drive anymore, perhaps they can hook up with a service that can provide them with some transportation to places and people that they want to see. Or perhaps they can use uh technology to get onto some virtual groups and things like that. People have to make themselves visible again, and unfortunately, nobody can do it for them. And so um, there are, that it takes a little bit of resolve and a little bit of effort to then find a kind of their niche. But that, that's the biggest piece of advice that I would give is that active aging, staying engaged in the world and with others is a key to not developing this kind of deep psychological vulnerability.

[00:47:07] Bob: So what other kinds of advice does Peter have?

[00:47:12] Peter Lichtenberg: One thing that we tell everybody and, and we're involved in piloting a uh, financial exploitation prevention program that we've created a 2 to 3 session, one thing we tell everybody is you, you really, in this day and age, you have to get caller ID. If you don't recognize a phone number, don't answer it. They'll leave a message. (chuckles) And uh then um, number two is you can't respond immediately. It, it's, it's like Kahneman's uh fast and slow thinking, you know you, you really have to slow down. If it's coming from outside, somebody's telling you about an unexpected issue about an unexpected request, then you really need to talk with somebody else before you respond at all. Unless you're confident, not to respond, which is of course the way we always like to tell people, but if you're not, if you have some doubt, then you need to talk to a trusted person, because once you get perspective on this, you will become more comfortable that you're okay.

[00:48:18] Bob: And don't be afraid to ask for help. That's harder for some people than others.

[00:48:24] Peter Lichtenberg: Part of what we try to teach, and I know it goes along with that AARP um, really advocates and part of our program then is to, if you don't have a trusted advocate, to identify one. And you know that's one of the ways that you give people back control. Who do you want to be your advocate? We all need one, none of us could, you know, predict the future, we don't know if we'd ever need it, but if we do, who would that be? And um, you know what are the characteristics that would make that person trustworthy? And I think if, if once people get that in place and have some conversation with that advocate, before there's any scam, they're more likely than when they're faced with a situation like this just to bounce it off of them.

[00:49:11] Bob: That makes a ton of sense, and you know an older child, a friend, who are you going to call if something like this occurs? That makes a lot of sense and have that in place beforehand.

[00:49:21] Peter Lichtenberg: Yes, yes. If you already have in place somebody that you've had some conversation about hey, you know, I might call you to bounce things off of you, then you're more likely to do it.

[00:49:32] Bob: One, one of the credos at this podcast is if you have not been the victim of a scam, it's just a matter of time because the right one hasn't found you yet. Anyone can be vulnerable um; you know there's no way to perfectly protect yourself.

[00:49:45] Peter Lichtenberg: And thank you, Bob. I, I totally agree with you by the way, and in our studies both studies that where we looked at scams, one out of 25 people were scammed and didn't have any psychological vulnerability or cognitive problems or, or social problems at all.

[00:50:00] Bob: Peter's organization offers tools that can help.

[00:50:04] Peter Lichtenberg: If you go to our website, OlderAdultNestEgg.com, that's olderadultnestegg.com, if you go to the Older Adult landing page, you can send a message to our so--, social worker who directs the SAFE program, and we will get in touch with you.

[00:50:20] Bob: And a human being can walk a, a person through fix--, fixing their financial lives?

[00:50:25] Peter Lichtenberg: Yes. Yeah, espec--, especially putting um warnings on, on uh, credit statements, especially if somebody's uh you know, gotten into your credit and, and damaged it. Sometimes we could teach you how to make the right reports, how to dispute credit charges, how to negotiate with companies if need be, and um, also you know, how to deal with law enforcement.

[00:50:49] Bob: And of course, you can always call the Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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[00:51:08] 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: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org, 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: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org. 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.

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