CINCINNATI (WKRC) - Two sisters lost their life savings in an investment opportunity they thought was a “sure thing.”
The man they met online said they could invest in gold bars at reduced profits, and then sell them for a healthy profit. The fraud is an important lesson for anyone with aging parents.
One victim’s daughter, who wanted to remain anonymous, said, “He eventually convinced her that he had found some gold, gold bars. He needed help with money to have them stored, shipped.”
The woman’s aunt and mother were lured into a scam that cost them their life savings. Her aunt first met the man online and convinced her sister to give him money. They thought investing in these gold bars would make them wealthy.
“She sent money… sent money… for probably 6 to 8 months. He just kept feeding them these wild stories and they really believed, so they sent money until there was no more money to send,” she said.
She and her siblings had no idea this was going on until they got a difficult call, “My mother's bank contacted me and let me know there's something going on, she is, you know, depleting all of her accounts. Unfortunately, it was too late.”
In all, her mother lost close to $3 million dollars, “I was devastated. Then, I had to break the news to my brothers who were infuriated. I was infuriated even more that they kept it a secret.”
Their mother depleted her IRA accounts and was forced to sell her home. She is now living solely on her social security.
Augustus Magee, a US Postal Inspector, said, “I've never seen anything of this scale before, I've seen, you know, additional type of romance scams. But nothing to where it has been this elaborate, this amount of money has been lost by the victim.”
The family has intervened, they feared it could happen again.
“It takes her signature and one of ours to write a check. Had we done that earlier, she would be in good shape,” said the victim’s daughter.
The woman wanted to warn other families to get involved, even if it feels uncomfortable, “Watch your parent's accounts and help them because they are the target and they may take offense to it, but if you can get your names on those accounts that's what you should do.”
The case is still under federal investigation. Moral of the story: No family is immune from conmen.
Postal inspectors wanted to remind consumers to never give out personal information to anyone they meet online.
