With aggressive scammers targeting seniors, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan offered no-nonsense advice during a Feb. 19 Zoom meeting with the Belmont Woman’s Club.
A member of the nonprofit organization herself, the longtime law enforcement official answered questions from members on how to avoid financial crimes and fight fraud, among other topics.
“She’s been an incredibly compassionate advocate,” said Wendy Murphy, club president.
Ryan shared that she also receives fraudulent emails, adding that problems begin once a person opens a suspicious message.
Likening a scam email to Swiss cheese, she said that when a person opens one of these messages, they “put a hole in [their] protective wall.”
According to Ryan, ignoring or deleting these emails is getting trickier with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) creating realistic, personalized emails.
“Artificial Intelligence is making it much easier to tailor those [scams],” she said.
For example, instead of writing a generic phrase like “Dear customer,” AI will include the person’s name.
Thieves are also becoming more clever and sending personalized emails by gleaning enough information from social media to sound legitimate to the person opening the email.
“They draw you in because they have a piece of information,” from photos posted on Facebook, said Ryan. Perhaps the image indicates a person is on a trip or includes the name of the college their grandchild attends. Scammers then take that knowledge and use it in a message.
These scams “depend a lot on people knowing things about you,” said Ryan, who advised people to remain cautious about what they share online, even if they think their profile is private.
Slow it down
Ryan advised that when confronted by emails or people who demand money and urge a quick response, it’s imperative to take your time.
“They’re trying to rush you. … That urgency should be a red flag to you,” Ryan said.
The same is true for phone calls or people who come to your door and offer services. The key is to take your time and not succumb to pressure.
She told a cautionary tale of a well-educated doctor who recently retired and was scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The retiree was called by someone claiming to be from the IRS, who urgently warned her that some of her accounts contained drug money. To fix the problem, the thieves told her to quickly purchase gold bars and mail them to a particular address.
By the time the DA’s office found out, “That money’s long been sent out of the country,” said Ryan.
“Even when we are successful [in prosecuting criminals] … we usually are not successful in getting the money back,” she said
If a person does make a mistake and shares their Social Security number, for example, they may feel embarrassed, Ryan said. However, she urged them to call the police and alert their banks and credit card companies.
To reach the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, visit middlesexda.com/.
