Love Online Leads to $60,000 Theft

The Perfect Scam

AARP

True Crime, Aarp, Fraud, Society & Culture, Scam, Crime, Bobsullivan

4.5 • 980 Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2024

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Debbie, a Colorado native and mother of three adult children, leads a fulfilling life of travel, salsa dancing and volunteer work. While her life is full, she would like to have someone to share it with. So, Debbie looks for love online and meets a seemingly great guy named Russell who claims to be a successful businessman. After weeks of daily texts and phone calls, they plan to meet. That’s when things get complicated – Russell, who is dealing with a work crisis overseas, needs her help to make some bank transfers. As a seasoned international traveler, Debbie is familiar with the nuances of accessing money when out of the country and she knows he’ll be good for it if she lends him the money. However, Russell doesn’t turn out to be who he says he is. After Russell steals almost $60,000 from her, Debbie bravely decides to tell her story.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week on The Perfect Scam.
0:04.8	I said, look, it would be complicated.
0:07.4	I would need to sell stock.
0:09.9	There's a tax consequence.
0:13.3	I just don't have money just available.
0:15.8	And he said to me, are you telling me that you have the potential to help me, but you're not willing to?
0:22.9	But I told him, I said, no, I really just can't. So that was enough to stir guilt inside of me.
0:28.9	And I had enormous inner struggle with that and ultimately asked myself the question, if I knew I could help someone I cared about,
0:43.1	cared for, and didn't, could I live with myself? And the answer was no.
0:51.3	Welcome back to The Perfect Scam.
0:55.2	I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.
0:58.4	We often feel helpless when we hear about terrible crimes happening, but we don't have to feel
1:03.2	that way.
1:04.3	Today, we're going to talk about something all of us can do, me, you, everyone, to help
1:10.7	fight crime. As always, we begin with the story.
1:15.7	Today, you're going to meet an amazing woman from Colorado, Debbie Fox, a world traveler,
1:21.5	a salsa dancer who volunteers at a rescue mission for the homeless. Just the kind of person you want to be your friend.
1:29.5	But you're also going to hear some things that should make you pretty angry.
1:33.8	How Debbie was, well, kicked while she was down by strangers.
1:39.9	Some of what was said to her will be hard to hear.
1:43.3	But I think it's really important for all of us to hear how mean-spirited people can be because, well, it's wrong to behave like that.
1:52.6	And it also really helps the criminals.
	...

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