Tech Support Scam Turns Romance Scam

(MUSIC INTRO)

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

[00:00:04] Joe Subach: I told her that we have this pretty substantial amount of money in metals. And she said, "We need to protect that." I said, "Why does it need to be protected? It's in the Armory.” I said, “They’ve got cameras all over that place. They've got armored guards inside." She said, "The hackers can steal the identity, gold and silver are marked." They've got like stamps on them so that’s what she claimed that they could get that. So she said, "We need to get that out and put in a safe locker."

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:00:37] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:00:42] Bob: Sometimes crime is all about circumstance. This one sure is. Joe Subach was deeply grieving the loss of his beloved wife, Neri. And quite literally at her grave on one of his usual midday visits when he tried to help a friend and the internet led him right into the arms of a criminal who would take that broken heart and wring every last dollar out of it. Here is Joe Subach's story.

[00:01:12] Joe Subach: I was trying to send a friend $500. I had knee surgery, and I was off of work at the time, so I was going to the cemetery like every, not every day, but every couple of days, and I happened to be at the cemetery that day when my Apple Pay got rejected. I just typed in like Apple customer support for Apple Pay or something. And it brought me up a list of things. So I picked one that looked legitimate and I called it. It was an 805 number which is California. And she answered, "Good morning, this is Daisy from Apple. How can I help you?"

[00:01:49] Bob: "This is Daisy from Apple. How can I help you?" That's how this whole story starts with Joe full of that deep, aching that only a gravesite visit can conjure up, trying to send $500 to a friend in need, and struggling with the tech he needs to do it. But let's back up a bit. Joe's beloved Neri had passed away in April, just four months earlier. Theirs was a beautiful romance.

[00:02:18] Joe Subach: Born in the Philippines, and we were both, we were both coming off of divorces. I was married 25 years and my wife divorced me, and then I was single about 3 years, and then I met Neri at my doctor's office actually. She worked at the doctor's, so I asked her out and it went from there, and we had 14 beautiful years together.

[00:02:39] Bob: Just tell me something, a nice memory about your wife.

[00:02:41] Joe Subach: She was just the sweetest person, but the most important thing I can say about my wife is she led me to the Lord. We have so many good memories; some travel, cruises we took and vacations in California and different places, but the most important thing that she's done in my life is she introduced me to the Lord. And now I'm a faithful man.

[00:03:08] Bob: Unfortunately, her time on this earth was cut short.

[00:03:13] Joe Subach: Yeah, she got sick in the beginning of 2024. She had a mass in her brain and we had surgery on it, but after the surgery it just got worse and worse, and she wasn't talking and she wasn't moving on her right side. I moved her to a big hospital in Pennsylvania and, and after about 5 weeks, they tried, and they, 'cause they have one of the best infection doctors there, and they, they suggested to bring her home on hospice because if she wasn't going to talk anymore and things like that. So that's what I did, and she passed away quietly and beautifully in my arms.

[00:03:48] Bob: Family is very important to Joe, and he had family right there with him during this terrible time.

[00:03:56] Bob: When your wife was sick, she was sick for a long time so you were at the hospital every day for a couple of months, right?

[00:04:01] Joe Subach: Correct, yes.

[00:04:02] Bob: And your sister was there for a lot of that.

[00:04:04] Joe Subach: My sister was there.

[00:04:05] Bob: It's remarkable that your sister was able to be there with you...

[00:04:07] Joe Subach: Yes.

[00:04:08] Bob: ...through all that.

[00:04:09] Joe Subach: Hmm-hmm.

[00:04:11] Bob: After Neri's death, those regular hospital visits turned into regular gravesite visits. And that's how Joe finds himself on the phone with Daisy that August day trying to figure out how to send money to his friend using Apple Pay.

[00:04:28] Joe Subach: I told her, I was really upset because I was, I got rejected twice and it said, it sent me messages, and it said, "Your Apple Pay, the $500 was being sent back to my account and, and it would be showed up in two or three days." So I called to find out what was going on and she answered, so I said... she said when I told her what happened she said, "Let me check what's going on." So she said, "What's your name?" And I told her my name. And she, she said, "Hang on, just hold on a minute." And she came back and she said, "You have a red mark next to your, your Apple account." She said, "You, you're being hacked and your identity has been stolen." And I was like, "What?"

[00:05:09] Bob: There's a red mark next to your name, you're being hacked.

[00:05:13] Joe Subach: I said, "Well what do I do now?" And she said, "Since this happened with Apple," she said, "We're responsible for fixing this." And she said, "I'm in an office complex in Palo Alto, California," and she said, "I have, I worked at an Apple complex," and she said, "I work directly with the FBI." So she said, "So we're going to have to protect you," she said. And then she said, "Are you in, do you live in Newark, Delaware, or do you live in Houston, Texas?" And I said, I said, "I live in Delaware." And she said, "Well your hackers are in Houston, Texas."

[00:05:45] Bob: Your hackers are in Houston, and we're going to have to protect you. Daisy sure does seem to know a lot about Joe.

[00:05:53] Joe Subach: Such and such Subach, and such Subach, you know that my two sons; I have two, two grown sons, and she mentioned both of their names and I said, "Wow." She said, "You need to protect them from the hackers." And she said, "You have a sister, Kathy." And I said, "Yes."

[00:06:08] Bob: When she knew all this about you, how did that make you feel?

[00:06:11] Joe Subach: I didn't know what was going on, but it was, it made me feel confident because she had these people’s names, and she said that she wanted to, she had, we had to protect them, so...

[00:06:21] Bob: It made her sound official I'm guessing.

[00:06:23] Joe Subach: Made her sound official, that's the word I was trying to think about, yeah.

[00:06:27] Bob: Okay, but also, five minutes ago you're at your wife's grave and you're trying to help a friend out, and now all of the sudden, this person says you were the victim of a crime and you've got to do all these things and your heartrate must have gone to 100 at that point, right?

[00:06:39] Joe Subach: It did. I was like, I was in shock and I was tired, like I'd never been, I had an identity theft program and stuff like that, but it had expired on me, so I never renewed it and so it scared me to think that my identity was at risk.

[00:06:54] Bob: So Daisy tells Joe they have to act quickly to protect him, protect all these people he loves.

[00:07:03] Joe Subach: She gave me a description of what she would do. She said, "We need to go through and protect your funds," and then she said, "After all that's done, we'll do a raid on the hackers," and she said, "We'll round them up. And once they're rounded up, I'll close your case and I'll send you, I have to do two days of paperwork," she told me, "then you'll be reimbursed." She said, "You'll get all that money back."

[00:07:25] Bob: Reimbursed? You'll get all that money back? For a set of gift cards that Daisy tells Joe he has to buy. Daisy says Joe needs to move all the money out of his checking account and buy gift cards with it to protect the money from the hackers.

[00:07:41] Joe Subach: She said, "We need to offset what your hackers have uh, done to your account." So she sent me to several different stores, and I ended up buying, I want to say, $6000 worth of gift cards; Nordstrom and Kohls and different things, the different places she sent me. I was running around for probably five hours buying these gift cards. And I would get back in my truck and then she would have me take a picture of it and send her, scratch it off and send it to her.

[00:08:10] Bob: So Joe runs around Delaware for the better part of two days following Daisy's detailed instructions.

[00:08:18] Bob: And did you have some sense at the end of the day, after I buy this last gift card everything is, I'm finished?

[00:08:23] Joe Subach: I knew we were finished with the gift cards. She told me, you know after we did a little bit on the second day and then she said, "That's enough, Joe." Because she knew I was getting irritated and disgusted with the whole thing.

[00:08:35] Bob: There's a lot of running around, right? I drive, I drive through that part of Delaware pretty frequently myself, sometimes the highways are not necessarily fun or easy, right?

[00:08:42] Joe Subach: No, not really. And it was...

[00:08:45] Bob: So it's a whole day of all that. Okay, so at the end of the second day when she says enough with the gift cards, what does she tell you to do next?

[00:08:51] Joe Subach: We just, I came back to the house and she just, we sat there and talked for a while, and she was asking about my wife, and she said, she said, "When did you lose your wife?"

[00:09:01] Bob: After a stressful couple of days, it's nice to just have this friendly chat with Daisy and to share a bit about Neri, and it turns out Daisy says she's from the Philippines too.

[00:09:13] Joe Subach: She said, "No, I'm a Filippino." And she said, "I, my mom and dad live in Manilla. I have a sister there. I have two brothers in Canada and," and she said, told me she's been married before and, and that she, her husband had a--, abused her, beat her up and things like that.

[00:09:32] Bob: There's still the matter at hand, however, and Daisy says it's important her office keep contact with Joe all the time while the investigation is going on.

[00:09:42] Joe Subach: And she said after the second day, she said, 'cause at that point she said, "We're going to have to monitor your phone 24 hours." So that's what they did.

[00:09:51] Bob: Oh wow. Monitor your phone 24 hours.

[00:09:55] Bob: But he'll be compensated for his time.

[00:09:59] Joe Subach: She said, "Every day we monitor your phone," she said, "You get $200 for that." So I thought, man, I'm going to be, I'm going to be in good shape after this is done, you know.

[00:10:10] Bob: And there is nothing to worry about because Daisy says she'll be available to him at any time if he has any concerns.

[00:10:18] Joe Subach: Her number scrolled at the top of my phone 24/7, so if I needed to be in touch with her, I would just say, "Hey, Daisy," and she would answer, "I'm here." So all I had to do if I, 2 in the morning, I could say, "Hey, Daisy," and she would say, "I'm here." She was always there listening.

[00:10:37] Bob: And so Daisy and Joe start talking pretty much every day, well more than talking. At these regular check-ins they discuss cooking.

[00:10:47] Joe Subach: She was a vegetarian and she was teaching me, like she said, "Do you want to, do you want to be a vegetarian?" She said, "I can teach you how to cook some dishes." So she would have me cut up all these vegetables and then I would send her pictures.

[00:11:00] Bob: She teaches him some exercises to deal with his knee and back pain.

[00:11:05] Joe Subach: I had a bad knee and a bad hip, so I had my knee done, the doctor wanted to do the knee first. So I did that. So I was out of work for, I was on disability and that's why I was at the cemetery so much because I just had time and I was bored at home.

[00:11:19] Bob: So she taught you exercises?

[00:11:20] Joe Subach: Yeah, yes, so she does yoga and things like that, so she taught me, she had me doing crunches, and I told her I was overweight and I wasn't happy with my body. So she would ask me, "Do some crunches and do some sit-ups," this and that, pushups. And she would give me exercise, and then she, later on, she taught me breathing exercises with yoga and things like that, you know.

[00:11:43] Bob: Honestly, it sounds almost like you were living together you were talking so much.

[00:11:48] Bob: And of course, Joe talks about how much he misses Neri.

[00:11:53] Joe Subach: I would tell her stories that my wife and I hold hands, and we do cuddle and stuff like that, little things, watch movies together, and she said, "I like that." And then she started saying I was, "I'm looking for a man like you, that's caring."

[00:12:08] Bob: And that sends these daily conversations into a different place. Joe doesn't quite know what to do with it.

[00:12:17] Joe Subach: And I really, a week into this I wasn't looking for love, I was just looking for to send somebody money, and I wasn't really looking for anybody to be with. I just, I was four months out mourning my wife and she forced herself on me.

[00:12:35] Bob: But these daily Daisy calls, they fill up that big empty space in Joe's heart.

[00:12:43] Joe Subach: Yeah, we were cooking dinner together, so I would, like I said, I would, I was allowed to send her anything. I would send her pictures of my family, my grandchildren, my, you name it, my truck, my house. I could take videos, I could do anything and send it to her, but she just wasn't allowed to send me anything for obvious reasons. But we would cook. I would send her pictures. She said, "Oh it looks good." And then after I finished cooking to her specs, she would say, "You might just sit down and enjoy dinner, and I'm going to, I'm going to do some paperwork while you're eating." And then she said, "After you're done, contact me, and we'll get back together." So I would eat and then I would, it was like maybe 6:30, 7 o'clock in the evening sometimes, and then we would, I would call, I would contact her again, and then we would listen to music together. Like she would send me her favorite songs, so I'd listen to it.

[00:13:36] Bob: They keep sharing more and more but Daisy is always respectful about Joe's beloved Neri.

[00:13:43] Joe Subach: And she would always mention her name, even later at months later, if I was at the cemetery and we talked, and she would say, "Oh we have, we have Neri to thank for our relationship. She supports us," and all that kind of stuff.

[00:13:57] Bob: Joe still isn't certain about their relationship. Daisy is only 38.

[00:14:04] Joe Subach: So she's a lot younger than me, which I questioned, but she said, "Age is only a number," blah, blah, blah, and this and that, and "You're almost 40 years younger than me." And she said, "Yeah, but you're the kind of guy that I'm looking for."

[00:14:17] Bob: He's also uncertain because he doesn't really know what Daisy looks like.

[00:14:23] Joe Subach: I never, and I never was allowed to see this person. She never showed me her picture. Any time I asked to see her, and I begged and pleaded, and I come up with all kind of, I said even mail me, mail me something. You know, just throw it in the mail anonymously. She said, "Joe, it puts me in danger. Like I've been shot at before and if I, if you were to see who I am, I would put my life and the FBI's in danger," and things like that she would say. So of course, I was starting to get feelings for her, so I just, I just backed off and I said, "I don't want you to be hurt."

[00:14:56] Bob: And Daisy says she doesn't want Joe to get hurt either, so in between conversations about vegetables and yoga and Neri, she asks him, "What other financial accounts might the hackers attack?" And it turns out Joe and Neri had stashed away an impressive amount of savings in a very special place.

[00:15:17] Joe Subach: She said, "What do we need to protect?" So I told her that we have this, pretty substantial amount of money in metals. And she said, "We need  to protect that." And I said, "I, why does it need to be protected?" I said, "It's in the Armory." I said, "They've got cameras all over that place." I said, "They've got armored guards inside." She said, "The hackers can steal the identity of like gold and silver are marked." They've got like stamps on them and all that, so that's what she claimed that they could get that. So she said, "We need to get that out and put in a safe locker."

[00:15:49] Bob: Daisy insists that the criminals can steal this carefully guarded stash of gold and silver, and she confesses she has more than a passing interest in protecting him now.

[00:16:00] Joe Subach: She said, "Trust me, Joe. I, I wouldn't do anything to, this is going to be our money in the future and when we get married."

[00:16:09] Bob: Our money? In the future? When we get married? Joe's emotions are all in a swirl now. And Daisy tells him that all that gold and silver must be put in a special FBI locker at the Central Bank in Maryland.

[00:16:25] Bob: Okay, so she asked you for an inventory of how much metal you had, and do you mind sharing roughly how, how much you did have?

[00:16:33] Joe Subach: Hold your feet, 780,000.

[00:16:39] Bob: Joe and Neri had managed to save nearly $800,000 saved in precious metals stored in an armory.

[00:16:47] Joe Subach: That, part of that was like, I worked for my company for 43 years, so...

[00:16:52] Bob: Wow.

[00:16:53] Joe Subach: And then I worked at an oil refinery in Delaware, so it had 8 owners. So we had like pensions that we could take a cash, a cash lump sum on, and reinvest it. So that's what I did. My wife and I decided that we didn't like the way the dollar was going and we liked the way gold and silver was, was predicted and how it's always held its value, so we got heavily into gold and silver.

[00:17:19] Bob: So Daisy tells Joe he has to get his hands on all that silver and gold.

[00:17:25] Joe Subach: And so that's what I did. And it took quite a while. I want to say it was, it was like 3 weeks to a month before, before I went, finally was able to go to the Armory and, and they loaded my metals in my truck and I brought them home.

[00:17:39] Bob: You took them all out at once?

[00:17:40] Joe Subach: Yes.

[00:17:42] Bob: That, that's a lot of, it was really heavy, right?

[00:17:44] Joe Subach: It was, yes, but they, the guys, the people there helped me load it in a truck, and then I just brought it in the best I could into the house.

[00:17:53] Bob: If I had a bunch of gold and silver in my truck and I was driving down the road, I would feel, I would freak out. How did that feel?

[00:17:59] Joe Subach: I, I was freaked out. I was, I was very, and the whole time I'm talking to her and I said, "I've got all this metals in the truck." She said, "Joe, just go right home. And when you get home, bring it in the house." And so that's what I did. I went, I'm 20 minutes away from the Armory, so it wasn't a long trip, but I came right home and took the metals out of my car, my truck, and brought it into the house.

[00:18:21] Bob: It wouldn't be in the house long.

[00:18:24] Joe Subach: So she had me take pictures of all my metals, and even make a video. She told me to make a video so you have a record of everything. And then, and then once I got that going, she said, had me seal it back up again, and she said, "I told the FBI that, you know, you're ready for pickup."

[00:18:41] Bob: Ready for pickup. So...

[00:18:45] Joe Subach: She said they're going to say, "We're federals." And she said, once they say that they'll either pop their trunk or come and put it in the back seat or whatever. And so the guy pulled up and he, he said, "For federals." And I walked out there. I had them on a, a dolly, like a cart 'cause they're pretty heavy like you said, and, and they were in my front of the yard and away from my cameras, and they didn't get out of the car or nothing. They just rolled their window down a little bit, said the code word, and then he popped the, opened up the back trunk. And I loaded everything on there. They didn't do anything. They just sat in, in the car. And I was on the phone with her the whole time, and as soon as I got loaded up, I said, "Okay, I got everything in the..." she said, "Okay, close the trunk and go back inside." And, and that's what I did. And the guy took off. I was just, I was sick.

[00:19:38] Bob: Yeah, no, I would feel so sick to my stomach.

[00:19:41] Joe Subach: And she knew it. So that's when she took me back inside. She said, "Sit down on your, your chair." And she would do some breathing exercises with me, and she said, "Everything's going to be alright, Joe. Don't worry about it. We're, I'm protecting, I'm watching. I'm monitoring this driver and when they get to the destination, I'll let you know. And everything's good. I would never do anything to put you at harm," and stuff like that she would tell me.

[00:20:05] Bob: And it sounds like her voice was very soothing, right?

[00:20:07] Joe Subach: It was, yeah.

[00:20:10] Bob: A few days go by and Daisy tells Joe she's still worried about other assets he might have that the criminals can steal. Well he has $50,000 in a health savings account. Daisy tells him to buy gold with that, and she sends over another courier. Then Daisy tells him, your hard assets are at risk too. She tells Joe he has to sell his pickup truck, his beloved pickup truck.

[00:20:37] Joe Subach: I paid like 30--, $34,000 for my truck, and they gave me 28. And then she had me, the next day, go to the bank, draw all the money out of the bank, and then she said, "Instead of buying gold," because it's such a small amount, "we're just going to do uh bitcoin." She said, "I'm very familiar with bitcoin." And so she gave me an account to put the bitcoin in and she said she would manage it until we're together.

[00:21:01] Bob: And this truck that you loved, yeah, it must, really sad when you handed the keys over.

[00:21:05] Joe Subach: I cried, and I got an Uber, Uber on the way home, and it just, I just cried the whole way home. I just felt sick.

[00:21:12] Bob: Cried all the way home. And soon after Daisy brings up his home.

[00:21:18] Joe Subach: She talked about selling the house and I said, "Look, Daisy," I said, "this stops right now." I said, "There, this house has too much sentimental value with my wife and everything." I said, "There's no way," and she backed off the house, but she even tried to, to get me to sell the house.

[00:21:34] Bob: And right about the same time, Joe gets angry with Daisy and all these transactions. So angry that...

[00:21:41] Bob: You actually got upset with her and accused her of being a criminal, right?

[00:21:45] Joe Subach: I did. Yeah, I was uh, it was probably in October sometime.

[00:21:49] Bob: Oh, okay.

[00:21:50] Joe Subach: And I wasn't getting any response for a 24-hour period. It was like a whole day. And I was trying to sleep. It was like 2 in the morning, and I just woke up and I was in a sweat, and I just said a few choice words, and I said, "She got me. She scammed me," and all that. And I proceeded to, to text her a long message, and I called her a scammer, and I called her every name in the book and the, and like the next day she contacted me, and, and she said, "Joe, I'm really disappointed in you. I was," her number had gotten corrupted by the hacker, "so the FBI had to create a new number for me and all this, and you're calling me a scammer." And she just gave it to me. And but yeah, it was, it was a couple of times, a couple different times that I called her a scammer.

[00:22:37] Bob: But by the end of that, you were apologizing to her, right?

[00:22:41] Joe Subach: Yeah, I was. I said, she had me played and, and said, "You called me a scammer, and I've been, I'm protecting your funds, and this is going to be our money someday. And I haven't let you down all this time. What makes you think that?" So then next thing I'm, I'm saying, "Sorry, Daisy. I just, I got scared because you disappeared."

[00:23:01] Bob: And Daisy, well she's still scared about Joe's money. And there is one last account that she's worried about. His current pension from the job he still has.

[00:23:15] Joe Subach: So in late November they were, they had done a raid, she called it and in October and early November, and she said they were still on the raid, but she said they got, she said, "We have most of your hackers behind bars," and she said, "You told me that you have a still pension money." And I said, "Yeah," but I said, "I can't withdraw because I'm still an active employee." And I was out, at that time I had hip surgery. I had my knee done in June, went back to work for a couple months, and then I had my hip done in November, so I was out, out on disability with my hip in November, and, and so she had told me, "We need to protect that money." I said, "I don't care about, it's 130,000. If it gets tied in with the hackers, I don't care." I said, "I'm not ready to retire." She said, "You told me that you're ready to retire. The sooner we get this done, the quicker your case closes, and then we can be together."

[00:24:10] Bob: The sooner you retire, the sooner we can be together, Daisy says. And that persuades Joe.

[00:24:19] Joe Subach: And reluctantly, I told my company on December 6th that I was going to retire and I proceeded to do all the work to get this pension money.

[00:24:27] Bob: You'd been there 43 years you said, right?

[00:24:29] Joe Subach: 43 years and, and I was out on disability and I lost money because I could have got paid for my vacation for the following year. I had six weeks of vacation, and there was some other money that I was entitled to, but I, I gave that up to, to get this pension money so that I could close my case, she would close my case and then I would be done.

[00:24:52] Bob: Wow. It's really hard to leave a job after 43 years.

[00:24:56] Joe Subach: It is, and right now I really want to be working. I worked as an operator, so I worked shift work my whole life. And I finally had enough seniority to get a day work job in a warehouse, and I worked with four other guys who were fantastic guys.

[00:25:13] Bob: So he says goodbye to his coworkers and puts in all the paperwork for that pension. The money arrives in February, two months later, and there's one final transaction to take place.

[00:25:25] Joe Subach: They wired the money, my pension company wired the money, 130,000 into my bank account, and then this Daisy would have me go to the bank and do a wire transfer to a (bleep), which was the company that I used to buy a couple blocks of gold. So I would do that. I'd, they'd wire the money to (bleep), and within a week I had the gold. FedEx delivered it to my house. And then she would have me take pictures again, like she did with everything and, and they would come. That was the last pickup that they made, and they would come and be out in front of my house and I would load it into their vehicle, and off it went.

[00:26:07] Bob: Off it went. The last of Joe's financial assets clearing the way for a new phase of Joe's relationship with Daisy.

[00:26:17] Joe Subach: And so I said, "What next, Daisy?" And she said, "We have your hackers behind bars," and she said, "We'll be flying you out to California to, to meet the FBI and to, and you'll get your picture taken and you'll get a reward," and she said, "so I'm working on your paperwork," she said, "it'll take me two days to do your paperwork, and you'll have, I'll be sending you your paperwork. You'll have all your combinations to your locker. You'll have, you'll get reimbursed for the gift cards and any tax consequences or anything like that will be waived." And things like that, and so I said, I said, "Okay."

[00:26:52] Bob: But Daisy has one more plan to make with Joe. She says the words he's been waiting to hear all this time.

[00:27:00] Joe Subach: And she said, "Then on Sunday," this was like a Wednesday or Thursday, and she said, "On Sunday I'll resign my position. I'll go back to my apartment and we'll FaceTime. I'll give you all my information, and then you can book your tickets to California to come and get me."

[00:27:15] Bob: After all this time, you must have been so excited.

[00:27:17] Joe Subach: I was, I was excited about meeting her and all that because I never seen her. I, I thought we were going to be a couple together.

[00:27:26] Bob: So Joe puts on his Sunday best and waits to see Daisy for the first time. But...

[00:27:34] Joe Subach: I sat there for 6 hours waiting. I would text her and she said, "I'm busy right now. I'll be, I'm planning on leaving shortly." And then towards the end of the 6 hours, towards 9 o'clock at night, she would say, she said, "Joe, I'm not going to be able to make it."

[00:27:49] Bob: That's a huge disappointment. But Daisy does send along an address so Joe can start making plans to come to California. And then...

[00:28:00] Joe Subach: So that day, she says at the end of the day she contacted me and she said, "Joe, I'm in a lot of trouble." She said, "I gave, I sent you that address a couple days ago and now it puts me at risk and it puts my coworkers at risk, and the Feds are really upset with me." And so I was concerned, and then she said, she said, "Don't worry. I'll be okay," and all that, and so the next day, which was a Tuesday, she said, "I should be free at noontime and I'll be going to my apartment." And then she texted me right after that and she said, "Three, three Jeeps of the cops are at our place." And she said, "I really screwed up this time and they're, they're, the Feds are mad at me." And so I said, "Daisy, are you okay?" And she said, "Yes." And that was the last correspondence I heard from her on uh Tuesday afternoon. She said, "Yes" to my question, and that was it.

[00:28:51] Bob: That was it. Daisy wrote yes, and that was the last message he had ever got from her.

[00:28:59] Joe Subach: I kept texting and texting, and called the number and it went right to voicemail and she didn't answer. And somewhere in the evening, late afternoon, I just sat there and I just, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. My, my heart was pounding, and I just, I said, "I got scammed."

[00:29:16] Bob: Frantic, Joe doesn't know what to do. I know, he thinks...

[00:29:20] Joe Subach: So like a crazy man, I was looking up, I was going to get tickets to California to, to go try to find her and this, this address she gave me, and thank God my sister called me that afternoon 'cause she knew Daisy and I were supposed to have a chat and all the kind of thing, so she said, "Joe, I'm, I was just calling." She said, "How did the, how did your FaceTime go?" And I just bust out crying and I said, "Daisy scammed me. I lost everything." And she said, "What are you doing now?" And I said, "I'm trying to get a ticket to California. I'm going to go there and try to find her." And she said, "Joe, please don't." She said, "My God," she said, "you're never going to find her." She said, "She's not in California." And she said, "Even if she was, if you find them, they're going to kill you." She said, "Go to the local police, the Delaware Police Department right now," she said. "Please!" She begged me.

[00:30:08] Bob: Thank God your sister called you that day.

[00:30:10] Joe Subach: Thank God, yes. She's been, she's been my rock. Even now she's my rock. She stands by me and our parents died several years ago. It's just us, and even when Neri was sick, she was by my side the whole time. She'd come to the hospital to be with me when I was there and, and she's been a steadying influence. Thank God she stopped me, because I, that's where my mind was.

[00:30:34] Bob: Only then does Joe begin to realize how much Daisy had instructed him to hide things from everyone in his life. His family, his work friends.

[00:30:45] Joe Subach: She had me lie to them. She had me lie to my sons. She had me lie to my sister because people asked me, "Where is your truck?" And I said, "Daisy, what am I going tell them?" I said, "I got a brand-new Honda. What's the chances of a Honda having major issues?" "Tell them it's the transmission..." blah-blah-blah. So I would lie to my sons. My sons were always asking me, "Dad, is your money protected?" And I said, "Yeah, I look at my accounts every day and it's, and everything's good," which was a complete lie, because I had no clue where my money was or where, what it was. She told me to say that kind of stuff. So I lied to them and I lied to my coworkers. Even one of my coworkers, they could see like the, my face was, I was distressed. It was after I had my knee. I went back for a couple of months, and in that time, they could see that something was wrong.

[00:31:35] Bob: And now Joe finds himself without that job, without those caring work friends.

[00:31:42] Bob: When you leave a job like that after all that time, it's the people you miss, right?

[00:31:45] Joe Subach: It is, it's the people, and really the work. Like now that I'm, I had all my surgeries and I feel better, I would love to have that job because I could do it much better than I was even doing it. Plus, I could use the money. I'm living on Social Security now.

[00:32:00] Bob: Joe does go to the police and tells his story, but they haven't given him much hope that any money can be recovered.

[00:32:08] Joe Subach: They, they opened up a case and they, I'm working with a police detective and I'm also with the FBI. He told me right up front, he said, "I don't," he said, "Mr. Subach," he said, "I'm sorry to tell you," but he said, "chances are we'll never find your metals." And she said, and he said, "We'll never find whoever this person was."

[00:32:28] Bob: If there ever was a Daisy at all. Maybe it was a team of people, he's told.

[00:32:36] Joe Subach: She had a nice voice, and it was as though I find that hard to believe but I don't know really much about AI and I hear it's pretty, it's pretty bad so it, it could have been.

[00:32:46] Bob: Joe is getting help dealing with the emotional fallout from all of this. He's still grieving Neri, of course.

[00:32:53] Joe Subach: My son suggested that I go see a psychologist, psychiatrist, a grief counselor. So I...

[00:33:00] Bob: Good, yeah.

[00:33:01] Joe Subach: ...I've been seeing this guy for, this man for several months and he's really helped me.

[00:33:06] Bob: I'm actually really glad that you're seeing a, a grief counselor, and the suggestion that you can sort of take charge by sharing your story, that's really productive, right?

[00:33:13] Joe Subach: Exactly. Yes.

[00:33:14] Bob: What I was wondering if there's anything that, that would have helped you when you were in that space?

[00:33:18] Joe Subach: Oh yeah. And, and I want to say no, I was completely hypnotized by this person. She played the love card on me and told me that we were going to be together. She was, she assured me that she was protecting my funds, and she said I, I wasn't allowed to talk to anybody about it because if I did, I would put them at risk, so that's why I lied to my sons, I lied to my sister, 'cause I didn't want them to be at risk for anything. So I really believe she got in my head somehow and hypnotized me, took advantage of my vulnerability and there was nothing that anybody could, I had guys at work, my, a couple of my coworkers, the one guy that reported this, he thought I was being scammed. He reported it to a congressman in Delaware, but he came to me, all my coworkers, but especially him, he grabbed me one day by the shoulders and hugged me, and he said, "Joe," he said, "I'm really worried about you." He said, "What," he said, "I'm here for you. Please come to me if you need to talk about anything." And I said, "No, I'm, I'm alright. I'm good. Everything is good." I lied to him and, and they could see it in my face. So there was, to answer your question, no, there was nothing that anybody could have done I don't think really. Like I wouldn't have listened to anything. I was just believing everything this person told me.

[00:34:35] Bob: I keep hearing you say that you lied to these people that you care about in your life. And I think that's the wrong word for what you did, because you were, you said it, you were trying to protect them and you were in this place where you were hypnotized. That's very different from lying to someone because you want to gain some advantage or manipulate them or something. I don't think you should, I don't think you should, you should be so hard on yourself.

[00:34:54] Joe Subach: I call it a lie because they asked me point blank, "Is your money safe." And if I said, "Yes, I check my account every day." And that's a lie; I consider it a lie. But yes, I was being manipulated by her, and so yeah, I am hard on myself. My, my counselor tells me that all the time, and he said, "You need to forgive yourself." And I haven't completely done that yet.

[00:35:13] Bob: It's a process. It takes a while.

[00:35:16] Bob: We're happy to say that Joe is moving forward. He told us he recently traveled to the Philippines and got engaged to one of Neri's cousins while he was there. They had been in touch since Neri died.

[00:35:28] Joe Subach: Someday we're going to be married and be together and amidst all this tragedy, it's, my wife is a beautiful part of that and my future wife is a beautiful part. So I have a lot to live for.

[00:35:41] Bob: So what is it you're hoping people will learn from listening to you?

[00:35:44] Joe Subach: If I could prevent one person, if they hear my story and I can prevent one person, and they realize, uh-oh, I'm in a scam here, and get out of it, I, I'll feel like I did something worthwhile. I'm a Christian man and I, the only reason I'm still alive today is because I have Jesus in my life, and I truly believe that. And to be a man of faith, I just want to get the word out to somebody so that if, if they're right now in the process of talking to somebody from Nigeria or from India or wherever, talk to somebody and get, be careful. Protect yourself because this person played on my vulnerability and she gave, she took me for, for everything that I'm worth, so.

[00:36:27] Bob: Criminals know just how to play on their victims' vulnerabilities. And that's why timing matters so much. Remember, Joe was visiting his wife's grave when all this started, still overwhelmed with grief. I know lots of us like to believe something like this would never happen to us, but the reality is we all have our good and bad days, we're all vulnerable as my next guest will explain. It's Stacey Wood, a professor at Scripps College in Clairmont, California. She also works with the Riverside Elder Abuse Forensic Center. Joe's story is awful, she said, and reveals just how persistent and relentless criminals can be.

[00:37:08] Stacey Wood: It sounds devastating, you know, to me. And you know the, the clinician in me noted that the scammers have gotten so good, I mean it's this hybrid scam that brings in like their best tools to scam people. You know they; they bring it all in here, all of the, the biggest hits. And the fact that he was targeted by not a cold caller but someone just waiting, you know, for, for, for people to call them would make it much harder to spot as a scam, at least at the start.

[00:37:44] Bob: He was literally at his wife's grave when he had the conversation just overwhelmed with grief. How much of a role does that play in a crime like this?

[00:37:51] Stacey Wood: It can be a huge factor. So of course I'm sure you know anybody can be the victim of a scam. But there's good evidence from the FTC that being a widow or having another big loss in your life in the past two years greatly increases risk for scam victimization.

[00:38:11] Bob: I mean it's a great thing for people, family members to know that, you know, right after an event like this...

[00:38:15] Stacey Wood: Right.

[00:38:16] Bob: Is it time to pay attention to these sorts of signatures.

[00:38:18] Stacey Wood: Yeah, exactly and, and maybe put some safeguards in place.

[00:38:22] Bob: One thing that's really unique about Joe's story is the amazing amount of time Daisy put into grooming him. After all, they basically cooked dinner together.

[00:38:34] Stacey Wood: Like when you are outside of this world, you have no idea. Something that I've done in cases, like to present to a jury that explain how a person who doesn't have dementia, who doesn't have a mental illness could be manipulated to such an extent is I'll, I'll show phone logs. And it's like this person got 100 phone calls in this two-week period; 90 were from the scammer.

[00:39:01] Bob: Wow.

[00:39:02] Stacey Wood: You know, 10, you know, it's usually about 50% when we've done the math, and that includes everything. So even, even a person that has a, you know, some nice friends and family, the amount of the percent of time they're engaged with the scammer is just so much more.

[00:39:20] Bob: Here's my quick math here. Ninety calls in two weeks, that's like 7 or 8 phone calls a day.

[00:39:24] Stacey Wood: Oh.

[00:39:25] Bob: Oh my God.

[00:39:26] Stacey Wood: Oh yeah. Yeah, and I've seen worse.

[00:39:27] Bob: But that, as you say, even if you have other friends, that becomes a huge, huge part of your life, right?

[00:39:33] Stacey Wood: Yeah, and often there, is it true in this case they're texting a lot, you know, also like the continuous texting which, you know, there can be multiple shifts of people playing Daisy.

[00:39:44] Bob: Right. So it's a, it's a whole team against one situation, right?

[00:39:47] Stacey Wood: Yeah.

[00:39:49] Bob: Stacey has also worked as an expert witness in many courtrooms where she has to explain a concept called undue influence. I asked her to explain what that is.

[00:40:01] Stacey Wood: It's a legal term that refers to a, a relational dynamic where a more powerful person exploits the weaknesses of a more vulnerable person. So that's kind of my general definition of it. It's defined differently by different states, but a typical case of undue influence would be when a person has some vulnerabilities like in your case, they're under emotional distress, they're grieving, they are also, they have some medical conditions, they have pain, they're lonely, that a person develops a relationship with them and then leverages that relationship in the vulnerabilities to benefit financially.

[00:40:45] Bob: Well we've done episodes about victims who had some kind of personal assistant coming to the house or a cleaning person or something, and, and ended up getting, you know, money signed over to them in one form or another. That, that's what you're describing, right?

[00:40:58] Stacey Wood: Yes.

[00:41:00] Bob: And just, and but, while it's a legal term, it also strikes me as something that I feel like it would be good for our listeners to keep handy because it, it seems subtle enough that you could, you could be constantly asking yourself, is someone who I love under some kind of undue influence. I feel like that might be a handy guidepost for people.

[00:41:16] Stacey Wood: Yeah, and, and you know it's, it's tough in real time to identify it because family may not know that estate plans have changed or that the deed to the, the person's home has been changed. So I agree, it can be, it can be very difficult to identify and intervene in, in real time.

[00:41:39] Bob: Very difficult to intervene in real time. That's why it's important to set up safeguards before a relationship or problem gets out of hand. One of the ideas we discussed is the important concept of a trusted other, especially when it comes to financial accounts.

[00:41:57] Stacey Wood: There's some planning that can be done like at, at your bank, having a trusted other, like hypothetically your parents could have you as like a trusted other on their account with permission to contact you if there's transactions above a certain amount. Again, not to control it at all, but just to be aware that these kind of movements of money are happening. And you know...

[00:42:19] Bob: You know could I stop you there for a second. That makes so much sense to add a person to an account who gets a notification if things are over a certain threshold. Is, is that a, a service that most banks would offer?

[00:42:28] Stacey Wood: Yeah, I, I think so. You know I'm in California, and I know brokerage accounts, when you open them, they ask who, who would you like to have as your trusted other. Regular banks aren't required to do it and don't necessarily routinely do it, but they can do it.

[00:42:43] Bob: One thing that we have suggested to people, I have suggested to people is just get text messages for, you know, all transactions or something like that, but we all know about alert fatigue now and whatnot, but...

[00:42:52] Stacey Wood: Right.

[00:42:53] Bob: Yeah, but this idea that if there's something over $10,000 or whatever number makes sense for you, that's when this third person is notified. That sounds like a great idea to me.

[00:43:02] Bob: Tools like a trusted other are important because it's so much harder to stop a scam after it's begun.

[00:43:11] Stacey Wood: Yeah, so if you set it up when the, you know, now when nobody's being scammed, it's just already there. Right, during, when a person's being scammed, they don't reach out. They're being coached not to talk to anyone, to keep it secret. So the best tactic, it really is prevention of scamming. It's much harder in the moment to intervene.

[00:43:33] Bob: Yeah, it really is, and that, by that point often the victim doesn't know who to trust or trusts the criminal more than they trust their own family at that point, so it can be really hard.

[00:43:41] Stacey Wood: Yeah.

[00:43:43] Bob: Stacey would like to see society stop blaming victims after crimes.

[00:43:48] Stacey Wood: Yeah, absolutely, I'm really, I'm so glad you're out there educating people about these. I guess, you know, what I would say is I, my heart really goes out to these victims. You know our culture tends to blame them. And that the psychological effects are, are quite devastating. These individuals have symptoms, like similar to what you would see from trauma victims because they have this like sudden financial catastrophic loss. They feel betrayed and angry. For my, my older clients, they have this time horizon problem, right, like, like, like your case. You know you can't just go back to work and re-earn this money.

[00:44:26] Bob: Yeah.

[00:44:27] Stacey Wood: And so I think I'd love to see the narrative switching more to, you know like your, like your brave client, you know, less shaming of victims, more talking openly about these crimes and increasing supports for people who have had these, you know, experiences as a crime victim.

[00:44:46] Bob: But before we were finished, I thought Stacey added something really, really important. Many of us like to believe that we will always do our best, always be at our best, but that's not realistic.

[00:44:59] Bob: Tell me what our listeners need to know that to protect themselves and the people who they love from becoming a victim of a crime like this.

[00:45:05] Stacey Wood: I think you know all of the information that, that you hear it over and over again, it, you know it's, the scammers capitalize on increasing emotions to a point where an individual acts in a way, that they may not act at their, at their best moment. So any time there can be an opportunity to brainstorm with a third party and to, you know, if you explain all of the facts to someone that's close to you and they're, and it's raising red flags for them, that that's, that's a good sign to slow down.

[00:45:41] Bob: I do like the way that you phrase things. You said something a moment ago about making a choice that you wouldn't make on your best day, but you might make on something less than your best day. Everyone can relate to doing things other than the best version of themselves at any given time, right?

[00:45:54] Stacey Wood: I think what's so kind of fascinating to me as a psychologist is how bad we all are, myself included, at predicting our behavior on our worst day.

[00:46:04] Bob: Aha.

[00:46:05] Stacey Wood: So we don't defend against it.

[00:46:07] Bob: There, there's any, all number of surveys like this, you know 90% of people think they're a better than average driver, right? Or, or better than average looking, or however you want to put it, right? None of us want to believe that we could be in this position, but data tells us that we all will be in this position, and we don't defend against the worst version of ourselves. I really like that.

[00:46:26] Stacey Wood: Yeah.

[00:46:28] Bob: So yes, we all need to protect each other and ourselves, not just on our best day, but on our worst day too. For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:46:47] 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.

(MUSIC OUTRO)

END OF TRANSCRIPT