The one about the widow in our ward
I'm going to tell this one a little quieter than usual. A woman in our ward was talked into a romance scam over about a month before her family noticed. It wasn't funny and I'm not telling it for a laugh.
This week's lesson covers the emotional angle of scams, not just the technical tricks. If you've watched someone you love get pulled into something like this, you're not alone in that room. Fair is fair, we should talk about that side too.
~kenneth
Reed volunteered me to go "check her computer real quick" last week, no warning, just texted her my number... turns out real quick meant two hours pulling fake tech support popups off her screen and she'd already read a scammer her card number over the phone before I got there! Called the bank with her, called her kids, the whole thing. And Reed's response when I told him was "oh good you're already godo at that stuff." Bless it, I am so tired.
okay so this class is making me paranoid in a specific direction... my neighbor's mother in law (not even in our ward but same kind of situation, older widow, lives alone) apparently got a call last week where they already knew her husband's name and roughly when he passed, like they had real details, not a generic "grandma i'm in trouble" script. how does a scammer even get that info in the first place, is that obituary scraping or is it something dumber like a data broker site that just has all of it sitting there for anyone to buy? i don't know where that leaks from and it's bugging me...
so this class is supposed to be about scam prevention and half the comments are turning into a whole gossip session about people we know..... like ok we get it, it happened, can we talk about the actual red flags instead of everyone trading stories about who it happened to. that part is making me uncomfortable. thats not the point of the lesson
kenneth thank you for saying that so gently needed that lol.
I appreciate you saying that. It's the part of this work that doesn't feel like a "lesson," something that happened to someone real! Session's over now, so no more Tuesadys for a while. I'll miss the 10 AM slot. Hoping there's a fall class to keep this going. ~kenneth
honestly kenneth thanks for closing it out right
Jace, thanks for that. It felt like the right note to end on, quieter than where we started six weeks ago. Baylee, you weren't wrong either, and Tyler, that question about how they get the details deserved a real answer I didn't have time to give properly. That's the trouble with a last class! Tuesdays at 10 are going to feel strange to lose! I'm hoping there's a fall session so we can pick that thread back up right. ~kenneth