Financial columnist speaks out after losing $50K to scam

now to the financial advice columnist who got taken for $50,000 actually handing over cash in a shoe box Eva Pilgrim is here got to tell us a story oh yeah Robin Charlotte Cole says she never thought she was the kind of person who would fall for a money scam but these scammers knew her weakness her family and she says they really made her scared for their safety now she's sharing her story to make sure people know this can happen to anyone it sounds even crazy to describe it this morning a warning from a journalist who covers personal finance she lost $50,000 in an elaborate scam that all started with a phone call it actually showed up as Amazon on my caller ID she said that there had been some suspicious activity under my account Charlotte Kohl's the cuts Financial advice columnist thought she had just learned she was the victim of identity fraud the person she was speaking to transferring her to someone claiming to be an FTC investigator and later someone who who said they were part of the CIA he knew my social security number at the last four digits he knew my birthday he knew my address he knew that I lived with my husband and son and he told me that my identity had been stolen by a criminal organization the person Cole's thought was an investigator describing in detail 22 bank accounts nine Vehicles four properties money wired overseas drugs and cash all linked to her name telling her there was a warrant out for her arrest for cyber crimes money laundering and drug trafficking he told me that in order to avoid arrest I would need to cooperate with their investigation the thing that made me kept keep going was that they had so much information about my family and they made it very clear that my family was potentially in great danger their directions don't tell anyone about the investigation take out $50,000 cash and deliver it to a vehicle that would pull up to her home as soon as they had the cash Cole says the phone call turned and she knew she'd been scammed oh my god what have I done I can't believe this has happened Kohl's is the growing face of who these scammers Target younger adults according to a recent report from the FTC 18 to 59 year olds are 34% more likely than older adults those over 60 to lose money to fraud the scammers have gotten much much more believable over time and watch out for this big red flag there is no way that a um a member of law enforcement is going to legitimately be asking you to for them money in any manner an expert say if you suspect a scam ask the caller's name their supervisor's name and what branch of bank or government agency they work for then call that Branch using a number you know is legitimate to verify because sometimes the caller ID on your phone will say they're calling from that place but it's not actually real so you need to do the call yourself to verify that it's happening yeah someone else said just hang up really just hang up I know it's easy it's easy for us to say I mean but wow heart goes out to her thank Eva well hey there GMA fans Robin Roberts here thanks for checking out our YouTube channel lots of great stuff here so go on click the Subscribe button right over right over here to get more of Awesome videos and content from GMA every day anytime we thank you for watching and we'll see you in the morning on GMA

Channel: Good Morning America

Views: 29,942

Keywords: Charlotte, Cowles, Cut, Scam, The, abc, columnist, financial, gma, hoax, money, news, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-107359624, stealing

Id: 5W6O_WOYWMs

Length: 3min 44sec (224 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 20 2024