He told her she'd won millions of dollars and that he'd deliver it to her door. He promised that she and her husband would soon be worry-free. And though she had her doubts, over several weeks she found herself sharing family and financial information with him.
In the end she eventually admitted to herself what she already knew in her heart: She'd been scammed. It's a lesson that cost one Green Valley woman about $10,000 to learn - everything in her checking account.
The scam, which involved at least two men and went on for several weeks this year, is detailed in a Pima County Sheriff's Office report. It's a familiar story.
The woman, who is in her 70s, lives on a fixed income and she's worried about the future she and her frail husband will face with no cushion. The Green Valley News is not identifying her because she is a crime victim.
The woman said she enters contests from time to time, and didn't think it was out of the realm of possibility when she got a call in November from a man saying she had won $6.5 million in a contest she had entered in February.
But she missed one warning sign: The caller said she needed to send $5,000 to receive a claim number to collect her millions. A relative told her repeatedly that if she won money she could collect it without paying anything. But she kept taking the man's calls. Law enforcement officials say this is a common scam tactic and no one who has won a lottery or contest needs to send money to collect a prize.
This wasn't the first time the woman was targeted. An employee of Western Union refused to process her first effort to pay a scammer last spring. That scam artist never called back, but it's highly likely the woman was placed on a "sucker list" and would inevitably be targeted again. Several months later, she was.
The second scammer called in early November and she fell for his patter. She was told she had to have a special permit to receive prize money over a state line.
"I thought, OK, maybe you did," the woman told a reporter.
The frequent caller sweet-talked her in a thick Jamaican accent, calling day and night, promising that she was going to have lots of money in time for Christmas. He left long messages when she didn't pick up the phone, saying soon everything would be better for her if she would just pick up the line. He said he knew she was there listening.
She began sending him money even though every promise turned out to be empty.
At one point she told him, "Last time you (said you) were on Continental. All you had to do is come down. That's been two or three weeks ago."
"I don't dare talk to him, he's a sweet talker, going to do this and that," she told the Green Valley News. "A lot of times when he's done I'd say, ‘You're scamming me and not going to come up with the money,' and he'd say, ‘Oh, no, this time is for real, the money will be delivered.' I just kept giving in to him."
She sent several more payments through Moneygram, though an employee there became suspicious and tried to convince her she was being scammed.
There were warning signs aplenty - the caller said he was a lawyer in Las Vegas and lived in Queens, N.Y., but the woman's caller ID showed he was using a Jamaican phone number. He said she entered a contest, then gave her a Las Vegas phone number, supposedly for the Nevada state lottery, and was told to provide a claim number. (Lotteries require the winning number on a ticket, not a claim number.)
After she sent money to several locations in the United States, even the Moneygram employee gave her the third degree, asking why she was sending so much money. She eventually lied to the employee, saying the money was for her son.
All along, deep down she knew something wasn't right.
"I called the phone company and said, ‘I've got to get the number changed, this guy is driving me crazy.' He called at least five, 10 times a day, at one, two, four in the morning. My caller ID said Jamaica. A lot of times when he'd call he'd say, ‘What time is it?' I'd say, ‘Hey, look, it's midnight... don't call me. I don't appreciate you calling me at 3 in the morning,' and he'd say he hadn't done it," she said.
After she complained, he'd wait until about 8 a.m. before calling every half-hour to every hour.
She asked the phone company to block the calls, which worked for almost a week until the same man, or several others, called from different numbers. She kept adding those numbers to the list of blocked numbers.
The Moneygram employee finally got through to her and she admitted to herself that she was being scammed. She called the Pima County Sheriff's Office and a deputy came to her house Dec. 13 to take a report. While he was there, the scam artist called. The deputy took the phone and told the man to stop calling.
But minutes later, as the deputy was driving away, the phone rang and the woman answered. "Why did you do that?" he scolded.
"Because you won't leave me alone and you've been lying to me," she said. "I'm not going to answer the phone anymore."
The calls stopped briefly after the deputy's visit, then started up again.
At one point the woman told the caller, "I'm not going to have a Christmas and you're going to have a fine Christmas."
The scammer recently took a different approach, telling the woman he is required to give her back the money she already sent because he didn't deliver the prize money to her. But first, she has to send him $500 to get back the $10,000 or so she already had sent.
He suggested she get a second mortgage on her home, and when she said that would be costly, he argued that it would not because she would get a huge amount in prize winnings.
"I said, ‘I've got no more.' He said, ‘How much money is in your checking account?' I said, ‘It's none of your (expletive) business.' He said, ‘What's the name of your bank?' I gave him the name of my credit union," the woman said.
The man urged her to get a cash advance from her credit card and send it to him, but she said no. The calls stopped last Wednesday.
"They've got a good scam going," she said. "He's very smooth. If you happen to be in a vulnerable spot, he can get to you."
•Check for known scam operators online through the Federal Trade Commission: www.ftc.gov.
•Have doubts? Call the Pima Council on Aging at 790-7262, or go online to: www.pcoa.org
•The Arizona Attorney General's Office has information about scams. Online: www.azag.gov, or call 520-628-6504.
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