Now in his 80s, he continues to preach every Sunday at his Chicago-area parish.
Within weeks, every penny of his life savings had been stolen.
But all is not lost, as former students and parishioners rally to support him.
[00:00:03] Fr.
Robert Banzin: I googled it, and I found a phone number for PayPal.
They emailed me and they would call me each day to tell me how are things going.
Now my money is saved.
Don’t worry, PayPal took care of everything for you.
They said, “Oh, you’ll get it back, don’t worry about it.”
(MUSIC SEGUE)
[00:00:31] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam.
I’m your host, Bob Sullivan.
Father Robert Banzin has devoted his whole life to the service of others.
That keeps him young, he told me.
Okay, so why am I talking about a priest on The Perfect Scam?
Let’s meet Father Bob.
[00:01:34] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Father Robert Banzin, Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago.
I’m retired now but I still work on Sundays.
A homily hopefully that makes sense to the community.
So that’s what I like doing.
[00:02:00] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Right, right.
And as you could tell, he doesn’t take himself too seriously.
[00:02:39] Bob: I hope your Christmas season isn’t too busy.
[00:02:41] Fr.
[00:02:52] Bob: Oh my gosh.
[00:02:53] Fr.
Robert Banzin: What could I say that I haven’t said before?
[00:03:09] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Yes.
[00:03:10] Bob: Good enough to do it again.
[00:03:11] Fr.
Robert Banzin: I should have kept them all, but I didn’t.
So can you just tell me a little bit more about what you were teaching?
[00:03:20] Fr.
[00:03:37] Bob: And how were you teaching?
[00:03:38] Fr.
Robert Banzin: High school students.
[00:03:40] Bob: High school students, so like kids who are teenager, young teenagers.
[00:03:42] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Right, right.
[00:03:54] Fr.
And I realized I do have PayPal, but I only use it rarely, maybe once or twice.
I said, I can’t, I don’t know what this charge is.
[00:04:18] Fr.
Robert Banzin: So what I did, I tried to reach PayPal.
Now in the background I heard voices, I heard typewriters and everything seemed so legitimate.
[00:04:54] Fr.
[00:05:23] Bob: His bank account is compromised.
[00:05:36] Fr.
Robert Banzin: There were two people talking with me.
The main man and supervisor.
And they became almost like, set up like a friendship with you.
[00:06:03] Bob: Oh I see.
So a criminal already has access to your money.
[00:06:05] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Right.
[00:06:06] Bob: So we’re moving your money to keep it safe.
[00:06:07] Fr.
Robert Banzin: We’re taking your money to keep it safe.
[00:06:09] Bob: Got it, yeah.
It’ll only have to be there for a short time, and then will be returned to him.
And that’s exactly what happens.
[00:06:23] Fr.
Robert Banzin: I did check out the bank and so forth.
There was a bank, I can’t remember, I think it was in Delaware or somewhere.
But there was a bank that had my money.
And then it came back to me.
So you had the trust factor going there.
You know, I got it back.
Then it started again.
[00:06:41] Bob: It starts again.
They call him and say he’ll have to move essentially all his money into that new account.
[00:07:10] Fr.
And that’s what I did.
[00:07:28] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Yes.
It was like crazy.
[00:07:36] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Yes.
Robert Banzin: No.
[00:07:43] Bob: …that probably took a half an hour, right/
[00:07:45] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Yes, at least that.
[00:07:57] Fr.
They gave me their phone number so I could call them.
So it was now my money is saved, that there’s nothing to worry about.
So don’t worry, PayPal took care of everything for you.
[00:08:30] Fr.
Then they were asking, then they finally got, do I have any more accounts anywhere?
And I was a little nervous at that and I said, “No, I don’t.”
And they said, “Well you’re sure about that because we could help you with investments.”
And then I said, “No, not really.”
[00:09:14] Fr.
They said, “Oh, you’ll get it back, don’t worry about it.”
[00:09:22] Bob: And within a few more days, he’s downright suspicious.
[00:09:26] Fr.
And they said, “No, no-no-no-no-no.
You’re, we’re your friend, we’re going to guide you, don’t worry.
We’re part of PayPal,” and so forth and so on.
[00:09:54] Bob: Oh wow.
[00:09:55] Fr.
[00:10:00] Bob: So Father Bob calls the police hoping they can do something to help.
[00:10:05] Fr.
And so the police were very helpful.
[00:11:01] Bob: You’re a victim.
But a victim without much recourse.
It’s very likely he’ll never see any of the money again, the police tell him.
What was that like?
[00:11:14] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Horrible feeling.
No, I just, I think that was my life savings, you know.
[00:11:21] Bob: His entire life savings, $60,000 is gone.
[00:11:33] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Sure.
[00:11:38] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Right.
[00:11:48] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Right.
It’s still going.
[00:11:50] Bob: Had to get some new tires or something like that?
[00:11:52] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Yeah, I had to do that, but it’s still going.
I always run a car till it ends.
I, I always said, I, I didn’t spend my money on cars or clothes.
[00:12:14] Robert Banzin: Oh yeah.
[00:12:19] Robert Banzin: Right.
Just about nothing, yes.
[00:12:26] Robert Banzin: Nope, not right away.
[00:12:35] Fr.
[00:12:57] Fr.
Robert Banzin: And I says, “No, I, I’m just so embarrassed.”
Itt was, I mean a miracle.
Donations start to pour in.
[00:13:14] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Within a week I got money back.
I remember one, I couldnt believe it.
There were a lot of them that came in that were totally, totally uh, unknown.
I said, “Oh my God.”
You know I; I was crying, you know I couldn’t believe that.
So many from former students.
Robert Banzin: Yes, oh yeah, definitely, definitely.
I couldn’t believe it.
I mean some of the guys I haven’t heard from in years and years.
[00:14:41] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Yes, yes.
That’s, so it makes you want to believe more in the goodness of people, you know.
[00:14:57] Fr.
And they, that sort of didn’t hit them at, at all.
[00:15:17] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Right.
[00:15:17] Bob: They’ll take every last dollar from a Catholic priest.
[00:15:21] Bob: The whole experience left Father Bob with some important questions.
The biggest of all…
[00:15:27] Fr.
[00:15:37] Bob: Hmm.
That is a good question.
[00:15:47] Bob: Right.
[00:15:48] Robert Banzin: So PayPal found out about it too.
And probably from the police.
The FBI was included.
I, I just called everybody.
[00:16:12] Fr.
I said…
[00:16:19] Bob: What do you want them to learn from your situation?
[00:16:21] Fr.
You know unless-, unless you just, you got to just take precautions.
Don’t accept it like I did, you know.
That’s my key right now.
I don’t think I’m stupid.
But how did I get caught up in that?
That’s what I’m trying to, I keep thinking about.
How did I do, let myself let that happen to me, you know?
It still blows my mind.
You don’t want people to know about it.
And that works to the advantage of the criminals.
So…
[00:17:35] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Yes.
[00:17:36] Bob: … this is a very humbling experience.
[00:17:38] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Yes, definitely.
I mean and it’s, it’s a reality.
It’s a fact of life for me.
It’s a reality, so I, I can’t escape reality.
I, here’s the picture, here is what happened, don’t let it happen to you.
[00:17:56] Robert Banzin: Sure, sure.
Well I don’t think they even care who it is.
[00:18:00] Bob: Did this experience shake your faith at all?
[00:18:02] Fr.
Robert Banzin: Not really.
And the help came through the police and the FBI and maybe that was the answer.
I don’t know.
I don’t think God works that way, but maybe God does, who knows?
That’s not a unique situation.
How can this happen and how can you protect yourself?
Whereas you and I may only take a few minutes a week trying to protect ourselves.
Well, actually they’ve been doing that for years.
And it’s super sad, it’s very unfortunate.
And lots of cancellations, lots of delays.
So they would look on a search engine and google their, their airline.
So somebody would say, you know, “Delta Airlines, may I help you.”
[00:23:32] Teresa Murray: Oh yes, absolutely.
The con artists are, they are banking on you not being in the exact right frame of mind.
That just, honestly that seems like something’s really broken to me.
[00:24:50] Teresa Murray: Yes, I mean it’s astounding, right?
So I mean clearly something in the system is broken because people’s lives are being devastated.
[00:25:55] Teresa Murray: Oh, absolutely.
You know you should go to the source.
You’re calling a utility, same kind of thing.
Look on your last bill.
Um, a lot of these cases you’re able to actually log into the account.
it’s possible for you to log into your Amazon account.
And so we recommend that people go and, you know, they go to the priority source.
So we really want to instill in people, don’t trust what you see.
Don’t make random searches, don’t respond to numbers left on voicemails or in text messages.
And that’s like, that’s thing one that you better do to protect yourself.
[00:27:25] Teresa Murray: Without backstopping it in some way, yes.
How do I know if this text is legitimate?
You know, how can I tell if this website that I’m going to is the real thing?
Like, you know what, you might’t.
Because the bad guys are better with this than you and I are.
What we really just beg people, remember one word: Unexpected.
And how, whatever that looks like.
So is it like, oh hey, I’ll call you back.
Does this sound right?
They’re like, oh, snap.
I don’t think this is a good thing.
And we just want people to hit pause when it’s unexpected.
[00:29:40] Teresa Murray: Yes.
Or that they’re not going to be able to book that flight.
In fact, it’s important to prepare for situations like this before they come up.
And he talked about the concept that comes from military service of having a battle buddy.
And of course, also, bouncing anything like this off a second person is always a good idea.
[00:31:16] Teresa Murray: Yes.
Yes, battle buddy, I like that.
What can I do to protect myself?
And maybe that’s putting limits on transactions, you know, only so much per day.
[00:33:49] Bob: Is there anything that financial institutions could do better?
And, and they do it in other ways.
There are lots of ways that banks can do better.
And consumers oftentimes have no recourse.
Once the money’s gone, it’s gone.
[00:35:56] Bob: But, Teresa says, all of us could do more.
I would have never let that happen.
How did that person allow that thing to happen?
And, and that’s just not the right, the right approach.
You know we need to; we need to reverse it here.
And it involved Medicare or it involved PayPal or whatever.
Yeah, I remember.
Maybe I should just stop and take a breath.
For The Perfect Scam, I’m Bob Sullivan.
Call the AARP Fraud Watch web link Helpline at 877-908-3360.
Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next.
That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org.
Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
For AARP’s The Perfect Scam, I’m Bob Sullivan.
