A Lakewood man was scammed out of nearly $20,000 after receiving a threatening phone call, TLS has learned.
The man called authorities yesterday after he received a call from someone claiming to be a federal agent, and conned him into wiring over nearly $20,000.
After hanging up, the man realized something was off, and called police. However, there isn’t usually much police can do in these situations.
Residents are reminded that government agencies will never call to demand a wire transfer over the phone, and will never threaten you with arrest for failure to wire over money.
Government agencies will never call you period, they send letters. There is never a need to wire transfer money to the government.
Also if you can plausibly believe you owe the government that much money and have that much liquid funds ready to transfer, you should probably know the above already.
I was thinking the same thing!
We pride ourselves on our isolation.
We pride ourselves for living in a world totally ensconced in Torah.
We (many at least) pride ourselves on our lack of secular education.
We pride ourselves on being distanced from the “way of the street”
& We also constantly lose thousands to scams that are known as scams to most of the world. The very world we reject.
Something has got to give to stop this madness of naivety that leads to the loss of so much money.
We pay for our lives of Torah all the time… This is just another one of the ways we sacrifice for Hashem. We embrace the naivety as more beneficial than the money we lose. Don’t try to ruin that.
The only person that’s naive is you! To think that this only happens in the drum Jewish community. This happens every minute all over the world. If anything the fact that this is newsworthy proves how rare it is in our community
Tony it sounds like you are ignorant to the facts that many people are scammed not necessarily torah jews! You have no clue! The issue is that you don’t believe in our system, but that doesn’t make the system bad.
Find a good financial person who is skilled in detecting scams and frauds and offer seminars for the community. Our parish is doing that this Sunday.
lack of secular education , why ?
This should be a mandatory lesson in every Frum School. How many more times does this have to happen?
Why is this the basics? Do schools need to teach you how to set your thermostat etc…
NEVER EVER fall for someone saying they’re from ANY federal or state agency. I know a couple of people who have fallen for these types of scams. They use scare tactics alot but they’ll use anything they can think of to get you to part with your money.
Hashem should help him and somehow send him about $20,000. ASAP.
Food for thought:
Maybe everyone of us can ask our Rav to get advice how to properly daven to Hashem starting now to ask Hashem to help all of Klal Yisroel that we should all be Zocheh that these theives should not be successful. Maybe if we daven now, it will be like a good insurance policy and Hashem will intervene right away to make sure that these theives will have zero success even in their planning stages. Hashem can do anything-not even the sky is the limit. A Rav can advise us the best Nusach for such a prayer and also a Rav might advise to say it after Shmone Esrei or maybe say Tehillim and then this Tefila.
Good Shabbos
השם ימלא לך חסרונך
Maybe we can ask our Ruv how to create an effective educational program that teaches Yidden how to avoid scams?
Maybe instead of Davening to Hashem to send him the money lost we Daven to Hashem that an educational effort is successful & keeps Yidden from falling for these scams in the first place?
We do that everyday in Shachris Brochos, Shmona Esrei and Birchas HaMazon,
It’s so hard for me to believe stories like this, because the naiveté and total lack of seichal is truly amazing. Having not become a Ba’al T’shuva until mid-life, and after having earned a post-graduate degree, maybe I’m the one who’s naive about the negative effects of complete frum insularity from any exposure to תּוֹרָה וּמַדָּע. But, in cases like this, foolish is as foolish does. I don’t know if there’s any practical remedy here.
This has nothing to do with lack of Torah umadah. As a matter of fact some of our most prestigious college kids have less seichel than the average street kid. And if you don’t know that, please don’t lecture us on being insular
Shua this has zero to do with hashkofo!
Use common sense.Always call the agency in question.
Absolutely! and if they are pretending to be from your bank or credit card company the same hold true hang up and call customer service from either your bank or credit card company so you know they are valid phone numbers !
If you don’t know the phone number let your phone answer machine take your messages or go to the phone store and they will fix your cellphone so you won’t get SCAMMERS calling you phone
If anyone sends monies to a government agency without sourcing a reason is paying with a guilty conscience.
NO GOVERNMENT OFFICE WILL EVER ASK OR DEMAND THAT YOU WIRE THEM MONEY OR PAY WITH BITCOIN OR ANYTHING SIMILAR. THEY WILL ALSO NEVER CALL YOU ON THE PHONE TO DENABD MONEY, NOR WILL THEY USE SCRE TACTICS. PERIOD!!!
Thank you
I know an elderly person who was scammed more than once because he had early dementia resulting in poor judgment (“judgment-impaired dementia”) causing him to believe every scammer.
Don’t jump to conclusions and don’t judge your fellow Jews unfavorably. Most ‘insular’ people I know have plenty of common sense and wouldn’t fall for things. Please don’t use a random story that you hear as “proof” that a Torah-centric lifestyle is damaging.
And to the person who was scammed, you have our sympathy. Hope you get back your money.