I live in Minnesota, but we would get all the grandkids and kids and dad together.
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[00:00:50] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam.
I’m your host, Bob Sullivan.
[00:00:57] Bob: A warning to listeners, today’s episode includes extensive discussion of suicide.
Call or text 988 and professionals are ready to listen and offer an empathetic ear for free.
I’ve been writing about, talking about tech based crimes for 30 years.
And I’ve never been as worried about them as I am now.
[00:02:07] Yeah, our dad, I remember loved water.
And they had sadly baked in the, um, Florida heat.
So yeah, that was our dad.
[00:03:09] Matt Jones: He hated you getting his car dirty.
It was his, uh, it was his brand-new Jeep that he was very proud of.
[00:03:15] Bob: Oh boy.
[00:03:16] Bob: And that’s Matt.
So…
[00:03:31] Laura Jones: He loved; he loved water.
I have memories of going on like a little sailboat with him.
Water sports, water activities, airplane museums.
Let’s don’t worry about it at all.
[00:04:57] Laura Jones: Yeah.
[00:04:58] Bob: Matt, do you have memories from childhood you want to talk about?
But you know he was always, uh he loved photography as well.
Not working for the man, you know, and just be the arbiter of your own success.
So yeah, a lot of great memories with him.
[00:06:07] Bob: The family moved when the kids were young.
It wasn’t easy.
[00:06:11] Laura Jones: Yeah, we lived in Florida for much of our childhood.
And so our father got full custody and we moved to Maryland where we moved in with him.
Sort of, I think I was in the 9th grade.
We were, we relocated to Maryland, and that’s where we, we all lived until adulthood.
He was in commercial real estate and it kind of, that kind of wiped him out.
[00:07:25] Bob: But you guys were early teenagers, if not quite teenagers yet.
That’s a tough time to move, right?
[00:07:31] Laura Jones: It was tough for all of us.
[00:07:40] Bob: But your dad did it and again, that says a lot about him.
[00:07:43] Laura Jones: He was super, he was always, family was his priority.
His kids were his priority.
Laura ended up in Minnesota with her own young family.
And Matt, well he ended up back in Maryland, not too far from his father’s apartment.
He was always into like alternate ways of making money.
He was really big on trying to make your own success.
[00:09:05] Bob: What is the opportunity that Dennis is so excited about?
[00:10:00] Bob: This person calls herself Jessica.
Matt has some worries, but he doesnt want to pop his fathers balloon for no reason.
But that summer, things seemed to change.
I live in Minnesota, but we would get all the grandkids and kids and dad together.
He worked his whole life.
[00:11:42] Bob: It is strange.
Dad is stuck behind a computer instead of out on the lake with the grandkids.
Matt tries to pry out of him whats going on.
It, it didnt line up.
So like stay away from it.
When Matt talks to his dad, he resists this new information.
And they gently have a go at persuade their father of the reality of the situation.
I mean he was not someone with considerable wealth.
You should start getting your money out, you know, trying to protect them.
And then his account was then immediately locked.
He wasn’t able to get any more money out.
[00:15:29] Bob: Dennis tries to warn Jessica.
And his account on the scam website is locked.
Now its clear he cant get into the investments he sent in.
But Dennis is still worried about Jessica.
He was still defending her?
[00:15:52] Laura Jones: Yes.
He felt like she was possibly at risk too.
[00:16:56] Bob: We talked on The Perfect Scam before about the human trafficking side of scams.
So Dennis isnt necessarily wrong in his sympathy for Jessica.
And that was always much, much harder for him to wrap his mind around, I think.
It, it didn’t, it didn’t make sense that that could be real to him.
[00:18:23] Bob: But being more assertive, that backfires a little.
And he definitely withdrew a lot near the, the last, uh, four or five months.
And we, we had to make a much larger effort to, to get involved with him.
[00:19:56] Bob: And as Dennis withdraws from his children, their concern about him only grows.
If you’ve been the victim of a crime and that must be really hard.
You must feel betrayed.
And he said, Yes, yes, I do.
[00:21:25] Bob: Hmm.
And that was what he was excited about.
And then that completely got flipped upside down.
He was in very good health.
He spent a lot of effort and energy on being active and eating well and taking care of himself.
And so that was part of it too.
So there was that.
And so we were kind of in the process of, of thinking these things through.
I think we thought this, okay, you know, he’s lost everything.
Now, now we’re just figuring stuff out as a family.
You know, we’re looking at housing, we’re looking at how to support him.
We were thinking through things.
Like this is, what else can happen?
You know now we just thought we were dealing with the consequences of it.
And what we didnt know is that it could happen again and its common to happen again.
[00:24:38] Bob: Its common to happen again.
Meanwhile, the kids do get dad to fill out a crime report about the incident.
And so, we did get him to, you know, file something there.
And we were really devastated to learn that it functions much more like just a database.
And he never heard anything.
And thats kind of like the rabbit hole he got into at the end.
Just desperately trying to get these accounts unlocked.
And they walked him through, you know, how to, how to, you know get more.
And we, and thats the part you know as a family we didnt know.
[00:28:36] Laura Jones: Yes.
[00:28:38] Matt Jones: Yep.
Dennis thinking, he could still get back the money thats been stolen and leave it for his family.
But theres another request for even more money.
Theres another delay and another.
And he has no way to repay these high interest loans.
More importantly, he has no way to reconcile what Jessica has done to him.
[00:29:06] Matt Jones: That was one thing that he said.
He was like, You just cant believe anything online anymore.
And it’s like, Well, yeah, you gotta be really careful.
I think thats what how he felt.
[00:30:03] Bob: No longer able to be in this world.
Dennis Jones takes his own life.
So now he was just completely upside down.
[00:30:55] Bob: Killed by a crime.
[00:32:42] Laura Jones: Yeah.
[00:32:42] Matt Jones: Yeah.
It felt like a compulsive behavioral disorder.
We couldn’t compete with that as, as his kids and we needed help.
We needed help to intervene.
And I think that’s, more than anything, what I wish for.
[00:34:23] Bob: The costs are so much higher.
One thing they made clear was they wished the process of reporting the crime could be improved.
I would want law enforcement to have clearer processes for how to report and get help.
So that would be the first thing.
[00:37:44] Bob: AARPs Fraud Watch data pipe offers an online small group victim support program.
you might learn more about it at AARP.org/fraudsupport.
Matt wishes large technology companies would get more involved in fighting scams.
And I get, you know, people reach out to me all the time on mine.
[00:40:00] Bob: Laura also thinks the financial system could do more to help victims.
And there wasn’t enough to even pay for his headstone.
We’ve done that out-of-pocket.
So there, there wasn’t even enough to cover all of his final remains.
[00:41:09] Bob: What do they say when you respond that way?
[00:41:12] Laura Jones: Um, they apologize again.
They call it crypto relationship scams.
Investment scams account for about 70% of those losses.
Individual losses can be enormous.
[00:42:34] Jan Hart: Absolutely has taken it to an absolutely devastating level.
[00:42:45] Jan Hart: Absolutely.
[00:42:47] Bob: Jan became interested in romance scams when her boss became a victim.
His photographs were being used to lure other victims.
Or to even send him a love note.
And then I had to inform them that they had been engaging with a scammer.
And there was no online platform matrix back then.
So, um, I believe that they had a different way to trust.
I think COVID increased the numbers of the scams exponentially.
[00:44:32] Jan Hart: Shame is powerful.
It seems like it overloads a human with guilt and self-blame.
And that deepened his shame.
[00:45:11] Jan Hart: But then its a learning process, isn’t it?
To understand the psychology of fraud and how they use it and what social engineering is.
The Secret Service told the family later that Denniss money had ended up in Shanghai.
It helps them to understand that they were totally manipulated.
The shame is just huge.
Its just huge and, and it definitely distorts their sense of reality and recuperation.
[00:46:40] Bob: Jan thinks lawmakers need to do more.
Just raising that awareness level to let people know that we need to do something about this, right?
Did you know this is going on?
So sometimes theyll listen.
I think its indicative of the relationship between the parent and the child.
Kind of like teenagers, same thing.
[00:47:59] Jan Hart: I think so.
And listening to you is persuading them to at least feel a little uneasy about it.
What should that person do?
Do a little bit of digging.
See what you could find out without including the person you’re talking to.
Don’t let them know that you’re doing it.
Who are their friends on their Facebook profile?
Lots of little red flags like that.
[00:49:13] Bob: There are resources available for victims and their loved ones.
The Fraud Watch connection Helpline is available Monday through Friday 8 am to 8 pm at 877-908-3360.
I think they’re at fightcybercrime.org.
They have some great resources on that website.
They have some great people working there.
They can offer some, some up close and personal resources for counseling, for intervention.
[00:50:04] Jan Hart: We need to stand against victim shaming.
We need to unite the fraud fighting community.
We need to fuel as much education as we possibly can and thank you for what youre doing.
Dennis Jones was 82.
Thats why Im so grateful for the courage of Matt and Laura.
[00:50:54] Bob: I am so sorry that we had to have this conversation.
Um, and I wish the both of you peace wherever you’re free to find it.
[00:51:12] Matt Jones: We appreciate your time and your interest in our fathers story.
So I am personally grateful that youre talking to us about it.
[00:52:06] Bob: Look for places to share your story and ask for help.
[00:52:13] Bob: For The Perfect Scam, Im Bob Sullivan.
Call the AARP Fraud Watch web connection 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.
