[parris]

Llewellyn I'm not sure if I completely understood your question but here's a go at it.

Often times the scammer will resell the card for a lower money amount than what is on the card. Some cards I believe also have a money value but I could be wrong.

What I've seen most is where the person being scammed will simply wire transfer money, send a bank check, etc to the scammer.

Other versions of the scam are where the victim is convinced that they have to give out personal and/or financial information to the scammer. Once this happens it's not tough for the scammer to drain bank accounts and open up charge accounts etc in the victim's name.

One of our detectives told me today that last fall we had a case where an older lady was in the process of being scammed but the local business saw it for what it was and told her repeatedly that it was a scam and that she was being taken advantage of. Our people got involved before she lost money THAT time. This happened 4 days in a row with the same lady and although our guys did as much as they could she still got taken because she couldn't process what she was being told.


One of the scams that I'm seeing more of is that the victim will be "contacted" by the social security administration. The scammer will tell the person that their ssn has been suspended due to it being stolen and they need to verify their ssn and other info in order for the ssn to be reinstated. I saw this a couple of times over the last month or so. One of the victims was older which didn't surprise me. The victim that DID surprise me was the person in their mid 20's that had gotten scammed.