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Video Transcript

Amy
To mark the recent release of the FBI's 2023 Internet Crime Report, FBI Seattle Public Affairs spoke with Special Agent Ethan Via on our Complex Financial Crimes Squad to talk about elder fraud.

Steve
With the recent release of the 2023 IC3 report, the amount of fraud we're seeing across the country is alarming. We've especially been seeing our elders targeted by fraudsters. So we decided to sit down today with one of our experts that actually works frauds against our elder community, Ethan Via. Thanks for sitting down with us today, Ethan.

Ethan
Thank you.

Steve
Why are elderly citizens targeted by fraudsters?

Ethan
That's a great question. I think oftentimes they are targeted, 1) because elderly folks, if they are lucky, have a sizable nest egg available to them. So they are seen as sort of more profitable targets by fraudsters out there. 2) Also, our elderly population oftentimes live a solitary lifestyle. You know, they may be either alone because they've lost a spouse and certainly they have a lot of free time to be on the Internet where they are often targeted by these scammers.

Ethan
So there's a sort of a bunch of combinations of factors that make them more vulnerable to these types of scams.

Steve
Well, how are our elderly population? How are they targeted by these scammers? What are the common kind of frauds that you guys see?

Ethan
Yeah, I see sort of two different types most commonly. The first one being a romance scam. So as I stated before, you know, if someone is living alone in their elder years, loneliness is a very powerful motivator. So they will get online whether that social media or their own dating apps and they get targeted by people who they develop real relationships with.

Ethan
So our victims honestly fall in love with these people. And then unfortunately for them, they fall in love with a scammer. And these fraudsters then utilize that relationship to steal money from them. So they'll either create some sort of emergency or maybe offer some investment advice, and then it kind of morphs into an investment fraud scheme. So that's sort of the first version.

Ethan
The second version, again is, you know, with people who are online quite a bit, they might get on a bad website or they get a malicious email and they click on a link and all of a sudden a pop-up window comes up and it's either, you know, claiming that there's a virus on their computer or some sort of issue with an account, whether it's a bank account, credit card account, it could be an apple iPhone account or your Amazon account, something that most people have, and it directs them either to a new website or a phone number where the elderly people then start conversing with a fraudster.

Ethan
And so then the fraudsters pounce and start requesting money and get them to elicit information that, you know, otherwise they wouldn't.

Steve
So is it true that a lot of these fraudsters are actually not even in the United States, and our elderly victims are communicating with someone that doesn't even live in the United States?

Ethan
That's correct. Yes, we see most of these actually do resolve to individuals outside of the country. We're starting to see a rise in the new call centers, even where they have these very sophisticated scripts. And there's rooms full of people just making calls and it's like a mass marketing organization. And they're just calling and calling and targeting our elderly population here in the United States.

Steve
Is this something that we see here in Washington state? Are there victims here?

Ethan
Absolutely. Yeah, we here in the Seattle division, we get complaints all the time regarding incidents just like this.

Steve
So, what should someone do, if they think they or a loved one is being targeted by a fraudster like this?

Ethan
Well, if they've wired money, the first thing you need to do is notify your bank. A lot of times I think people want to get law enforcement involved immediately. And you do need us involved. But first of all, you need to stop that bleeding. So contact your banks. If it's an investment account, contact your financial adviser or

Ethan
whomever you have those accounts with and let them know what's happened so that they can get to work either freezing money where you may have sent it or getting it reversed into those accounts and then secondly, now you can report it to law enforcement. And we have a Web page for that. It's ic3.gov.

Ethan
The letter “i,” the letter “c,” the number “three,” .gov, and that's where you can report it to law enforcement. And we would ask that you be as thorough as possible in that complaint. And I know it, you know, people will be hesitant to do this, but we need as much banking information as you can provide us: bank account numbers, both your bank account and where you sent the money, as well as names, addresses, any kind of means of communication that you might have access to to help us track down who did this to you.

Steve
So it sounds like speed is of the essence.

Ethan
Absolutely. Because the fraudsters know that they don't have much time. Once that money hits those accounts that they have control over, because they will pull that very quickly.

Steve
And banks and the law enforcement are successful? And sometimes stopping this, the frauds or the wires from going through?

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Ethan
Yes, absolutely. We have very good working relationships with most financial institutions. So if we know about it soon enough, we can contact them and they can quickly help us get the money back to the victims.

Steve
Is there anything new in some of these frauds that are targeting our elders that you've been seeing?

Ethan
Yes, as part of the romance scams. Oftentimes, what we'll find is the fraudster paramour, if you will, will get the victims to invest into virtual currency. So they will offer up their services. They claim to be experts in virtual currency trading and things like that. And so they will get the victims to purchase virtual currency, generally Bitcoin.

Ethan
But we do see other virtual currencies as well. And then once our victims do that, it becomes very difficult for now, the victim to get that money back because once the virtual currency is transferred, you don't have a financial institution that can reach out to the receiving bank and pull that money back. Virtual currency makes it much more difficult for the victim.

Ethan
Law enforcement has their ways to do that. But for the victim, it's much more difficult.

Steve
Is there anything that we could, you know, advice we can provide, maybe someone that has aging parents, something that they could do to help ensure their loved one isn't a victim?

Ethan
Yes. If you have a parent who may be suffering from cognitive decline, it's a good idea to get a power of attorney for their financial affairs. That way, you're able to monitor their financial accounts so that you sort of have two eyes on on the ball, if you will, to look out for any suspicious activity.

Ethan
Another thing you could do is monitor their social media activity as well, ensure they have their privacy settings set pretty rigorously. So that people can't just willy nilly target them and look at their traffic on a day-to-day basis.

Steve
Great information. Much appreciated.

Ethan
Thank you.

Amy
Thank you for joining us to discuss elder fraud and ways to protect yourselves and your loved ones from becoming victims. For more information about the FBI Seattle field office, visit us online at fbi.gov/Seattle or on social media on X, Facebook, and Instagram. Thanks for tuning in.