When I did tell friends what had happened, it seemed like everyone had a horror story. One friend’s dad, a criminal-defense attorney, had been scammed out of $1.2 million. Another person I know, a real-estate developer, was duped into wiring $450,000 to someone posing as one of his contractors. Someone else knew a Wall Street executive who had been conned into draining her 401(k) by some guy she met at a bar.

Man, I’m in the wrong business, apparently the petite-bourgeoise are easy as hell to scam.

It is absolutely wild to me that there are grown, presumably mentally competent adults out there who are willing to (1) answer their phones and then (2) stay on the phone for hours with a stranger and do what they say. At no point did this lady do even the bare minimum of critical pushback.

“If you talk to an attorney, I cannot help you anymore,” Michael said sternly. “You will be considered noncooperative. Your home will be raided, and your assets will be seized. You may be arrested. It’s your choice.” This seemed ludicrous. I pictured officers tramping in, taking my laptop, going through our bookshelves, questioning our neighbors, scaring my son. It was a nonstarter. “Can I just come to your office and sort this out in person?” I said. “It’s getting late, and I need to take my son trick-or-treating soon.” “My office is in Langley,” he said. “We don’t have enough time. We need to act immediately. I’m going to talk you through the process. It’s going to sound crazy, but we must follow protocol if we’re going to catch the people behind this.” He explained that the CIA would need to freeze all the assets in my name, including my actual bank accounts. In the eyes of the law, there was no difference between the “real” and the fraudulent ones, he said. They would also deactivate my compromised Social Security number and get me a new one. Then, by monitoring any activity under my old Social Security number and accounts, they would catch the criminals who were using my identity and I would get my life back. But until then, I would need to use only cash for my day-to-day expenses. It was far-fetched. Ridiculous. But also not completely out of the realm of possibility. “Do I have any other options?” I asked. “Unfortunately, no,” he said. “You must follow my directions very carefully. We do not have much time.” He asked me how much cash I thought I would need to support myself for a year if necessary. My assets could be frozen for up to two years if the investigation dragged on, he added. There could be a trial; I might need to testify. These things take time. “I don’t know, $50,000?” I said. I wondered how I would receive paychecks without a bank account. Would I have to take time off from work? I did some mental calculations of how much my husband could float us and for how long. “Okay,” he said. “You need to go to the bank and get that cash out now. You cannot tell them what it is for. In one of my last cases, the identity thief was someone who worked at the bank.”

More than a good chunk of people make in a year, she just lit it on fire.

Amazing work.

if i didn’t want to get scammed i would just not answer my phone if the call is from a strange number pls hire me ny mag

Hello, I’m the King of Uyghurland. If you give me $100,000 in the form of barrows of pennies to be dropped off at the Mexican border, Xi will be finished.

lmao, she lives in a $4,000,000 house and is related to the Roosevelts:

This whole thing keeps getting funnier and funnier.