Utah Fraud Victim Describes Her Ordeal

---

Video Transcript

They had these seminars. They had these slick brochures. Here’s a list of ways you can invest this. Here’s the forms you need to do. This is all you have to do. This is the price you will pay if you do this and this and this. Okay. 

Title slide: Barbara, a resident of Utah, lost nearly $50,000 in a real estate fraud scam.

I took my husband with me every time because I feel like that was the sort of thing that’s like going to the doctor for these serious things. You need to take your partner so that there’s somebody else hearing. We are both going along with it. We didn’t pick up on it.

Title slide: Affinity fraud is a scheme through which scammers prey on individuals with whom they share a bond, such as a common religion or social group.

I’ve never been able to figure out what I would have done to pick up that the guy was stealing. I don’t know that you could go through ... how many years would you have to go through to figure out that the guy was floating a bunch of money. Do you have a blood type of those sorts of people? Do you look in their eyes and see if their eyes are going this way? What do you do? Because, like I say, you went into this beautiful office with glass cubicles and beautiful desks and cookies on the table with drinks of punch. And it was that way every time that you went. Well, the reason was they really wanted to make it look fancy. 

I never have been really sad; furious maybe, but never sad. And now it’s sort of like, stupid. I should have done something more; I don’t know what it would have been.

I don’t know if I told you. My husband is 81. And this is what we do in the summer. In the winter, we play. It’s kind of what we planned to do. Some of the things you don’t plan on, like this loss. But my husband is a real good one to say, oh well, we’ll make it up. You can get more money. So, that’s what we are doing is getting more money.