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A cell phone with an incoming call (symbolic image): Fraud attempts often come out of nowhere
Photo: Guido Mieth / Getty Images
"If I had to name one moment when I thought the people who were ripping me off were legitimate, it was probably when they read me my social security number." This is what financial columnist Charlotte Cowles writes in a text that is available to readers Readers of The Cut, which is part of New York Magazine, understand one thing in particular: how quickly you can lose a lot of money.
Charlotte Cowles fell for a multi-stage scam, which she recounts in detail in her approximately 30,000-character article. According to their description, the scam is based primarily on the persuasive skills of criminals over the telephone. However, it also shows how quickly a single unexpected message can take people out of their everyday lives, similar to so-called shock calls or alleged Europol calls, which often occurred in Germany, especially in 2022.
Some scams like the “Tinder trading scam” require weeks of preparation: criminals try to befriend potential victims using fake identities, which naturally takes a while. The perpetrators in this case, however, managed to rip off Charlotte Cowles by suggesting immediate commercial pressure - in the name of supposed authorities.
A horror day on Halloween
Based on her own descriptions, her case can be roughly outlined as follows: On October 31st, a normal working day, Cowles received a call around midday. According to her cell phone display, it came from Amazon (which was not true). The woman on the phone, “Krista,” posed as an Amazon customer service representative and said she wanted to investigate unusual account activity. Did Cowles recently spend $8,000 on MacBooks and iPads?
Cowles found no evidence of this in her real Amazon account. But the woman on the phone claimed that she could see in Amazon's system that the author still had two business accounts. "Krista and I agreed that I was the victim of identity theft," Cowles writes. “Krista” then offered her the prospect of flagging the problematic accounts and freezing their activities.
But something else happened during that conversation: “Krista” persuaded Cowles that Amazon had bigger problems with identity theft. For this reason, she should now speak to a representative of the US consumer protection agency FTC.
The alleged case grew bigger and bigger
This man, to whom Cowles was immediately transferred, apparently knew her address, her date of birth and her social security number. He also claimed that Cowles had 22 bank accounts, nine cars and four properties registered in his name. More than three million dollars were transferred from those accounts, for example to Iraq and Jamaica. The alleged FTC representative tried to convince her that her name was also connected to a drug raid - and that her communications were being monitored. She is already being investigated on suspicion of money laundering.
Cowles quickly found no evidence online that any of this was true. According to her article, she always had doubts about the story she was told. At the same time, she didn't seem to think the whole thing was impossible, given what she'd heard about identity theft. And: Up to this point, no one had ever asked her for money.
Now things happened in quick succession: Cowles was forwarded by the alleged FTC man to an alleged CIA representative, who actively called her again at her request. Cowles' cell phone then indicated that it was a CIA number. This can probably be explained by the so-called call ID spoofing, which the Federal Network Agency warns about here.
The alleged CIA representative now repeated the alleged FTC representative's thievery guns and emphasized that it was important that Cowles cooperate and keep her problem to herself. It was also said that immediate action was required, among other things because all of Cowles' assets would have to be frozen in the course of money laundering investigations. Also your bank accounts, for up to two years. She would also get a new Social Security number.
It was about $50,000
Cowles was then asked to withdraw money to support himself after the accounts were frozen: $50,000. A colleague of the alleged CIA employee would then meet Cowles to discuss how to proceed. “You can’t send a complete stranger to my house,” Cowles remembers replying. "My two-year-old son will be here."
Regarding her emotional state at this point, after several hours on the phone, she writes: "It is impossible to explain why I accepted this logic. But I had been given marching orders and a deadline. My son was coming home soon and I had to sort this mess out." So she actually ended up withdrawing $50,000 from the bank while still having the alleged CIA man on the line.
Soon afterwards, the man said goodbye and handed Cowles off to a supposed colleague. When this made Cowles nervous, she was sent an ID photo purporting to be of the CIA representative to calm her down. He was now on the phone again and was now also using information from the conversation and saying things like: “You can trust me and I will help you. Or you can hang up and put yourself and your family in danger. Do you really want to take that risk with a small child?”
"I was exhausted"
Cowles finally did what she probably never would have thought of doing that morning: She put $50,000 in a shoebox, labeled it according to the voice on the phone's instructions, and finally handed it over to an alleged undercover agent. In return for handing over the money, she was promised a check for the amount given. The exchange transaction was justified by the money laundering investigation; Cowles was supposed to get clean money through the check.
The handover took place on the street; the messenger came in an SUV. Cowles also wanted to make sure no one came into her house, she emphasizes: "If I could give him that money to get rid of him, I was willing to do it." She sat on the phone for almost five hours and wanted to celebrate Halloween with her little son: "I was exhausted."
At some point, Cowles no longer got her alleged CIA contact on the line, only his supposed colleague. And at some point she finally realized that she had been cheated on. Cowles now told her husband, parents and brother what had happened to her. During the course of the day she had only informed her husband superficially or even incorrectly about what was happening because she was told several times on the phone not to tell anyone else. She was also advised against hiring a lawyer.
An attack on the psyche
As many warning signs as Charlotte Cowles's descriptions may contain, her story shows once again how quickly even people who don't consider themselves naive can get caught up in the vortex of a scam - if they are caught on the wrong foot and the right ones Trigger uses. At the end of her article, Cowles writes: “Several of my friends strongly believe that if the scammers hadn't mentioned my son, I would never have fallen for it. You're right that I would be willing to do - or pay - anything to protect him." Either way, Cowles ultimately writes, she has to accept "that someone has waged a psychological war against me": "And I lost."
You can find Cowles' article, which describes the scammers' actions in more detail, here at "The Cut" . And you can find some general tips on how to protect yourself against online fraud here. In principle, some standard advice would have helped in Cowles' case, too, such as "Be careful where time and pressure to act arises" or "Authorities don't just collect money or valuables." A check call to Amazon, independent of the call from the supposed customer service, would probably have helped resolve the situation early.
And as far as the social security number thing is concerned: If strangers present you with personal data, such as addresses or dates of birth, you shouldn't be blinded by it at first. In times of numerous data leaks, for example from insurance companies, such information quickly ends up in the wrong hands.
As always, it's easy to talk from the outside. What is really crucial is that you act correctly at the moment in question.