Question

How Criminals Steal $37 Billion a Year from America’s Elderly and what happened to Marjorie Jones and how she solved this issues?

Answer 1

Most of the fraud cases these days are accounted by telephone pitchers, online scammers ,and last but not the least the family members even attempts mostly the vulnerable targets when they are planning for a scam. The incident of Marjorie Jones was also planned in a similar manner . She trusted the man who informed her over phone about her winning the Sweepstakes prize. The man added further that she could have the entire amount of the prize money only after paying the taxes and fees. Having a deep faith on the unknown caller , the aged woman managed the first installment,soon after paying that amount she started receiving umpteen number of calls from a group of callers , and all of them somehow added more and more conditions for squeezing out more money. Eventually the legally blind elderly, i.e Marjorie Jones depleted her savings in this process, and not only that , she took out a reverse mortgage and used life insurance policy to get the money. She lived in a two-story house in Moss Bluff ,Lousiana  , all alone. Although she had her sister living in the next door but she was unaware about this mishap. Later investigators revealed that most of these scammers often pressurize the victim about keeping this matter confidential , so that he/she could give a surprise to relatives after receiving the lump sum amount. The frauds managed to squeeze out $37 Billion from her and the most striking fact was that the family couldn't guess the situation until the aged woman started borrowing money. This was surprising for them as they all admired her for her self reliance as well as financial independence. Her granddaughter Angela Stancik later reported about this mishap, and according to that report Marjorie depleted her lifetime savings in this scam. Its from Stancik's answers we came to know that Marjorie contacted her in Texas, for borrowing yet another sum of $6,000. A week after that Marjorie committed suicide. Much later , in the early May 2010 Marjorie's family visited her place , they came across a caller-id filled with unknown numbers and 3 bags containing wire transfer receipts. It was really an unfortunate incident that a financially stable woman chose suicide as the only solution having only $69 left in her bank account at that time.