[00:00:14] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam.
I’m your host, Bob Sullivan.
Here’s our story, “A Mother’s Valiant Rescue.”
[00:01:10] Charlotte Robinette: We had a friend that was down here and brought us down here.
So, we moved down here then.
‘76 is when we moved down here.
[00:01:27] Bob: Yeah.
[00:01:34] Charlotte Robinette: I did nursing.
[00:01:35] Bob: You did nursing.
And he was going to be a co-pastor out there.
And it, it worked out okay, but not real good.
So, that’s when we were in contact with our friends from Arizona.
So that’s why we moved down here.
[00:02:22] Bob: And so you were a nurse for how long?
[00:02:26] Charlotte Robinette: Oh man.
Well, since ‘72.
So, 50 years.
[00:02:33] Bob: Wow.
And sometimes they lived with us, sometimes they just stayed for a while.
One of them I kept as a foster daughter.
[00:03:36] Charlotte Robinette: I work two days a week.
[00:03:37] Bob: Oh, that’s nice.
That’s a good mix, yeah.
And, and it’s not real hard work other than the fact that he’s pretty heavy.
It was around lunchtime.
Because I was just getting ready to pack my lunch for work.
I still didn’t have my scrubs on, I had my civies on.
These guys, they’ve taken me."
And it sounded exactly like her.
‘Cause I’ve been around her when she is crying like that.
And, uh, you do exactly what we say."
So, I said, you know, What are you doing?"
and all of that.
This went on for a little bit and then I said, “Let me hear her.”
And he wouldn’t let me talk to her.
He says, “No, that’s the last you’re going to to hear of her.
[00:05:22] Bob: They were going to kill her.
Charlotte doesn’t have any time to think.
[00:05:29] Charlotte Robinette: I was sitting in my garage.
It’s kind of my sanctuary.
I come out in the garage, and I smoke and do crossword puzzles between my tools and stuff.
They wouldn’t let me call work.
I said, “I have to go to work.”
So I was a no call/no show at work.
And this is something that I never, ever do.
And when she gets into her car, they also tell her she can’t hang up.
They listen to the entire drive, monitor her every move.
They made me tell them every store that I was passing, every street that I was passing.
[00:06:30] Bob: It feels like chaos.
Charlotte can hardly understand what the callers really want, but she doesn’t dare not follow their instructions.
And the demands keep coming.
[00:06:41] Charlotte Robinette: So naturally, it put me in a freak-out panic mode.
And then he made me get all the money out of my savings.
You know, I couldn’t just wire them all of that money.
But even all the money in her bank account isn’t enough.
They want her Social Security checks too.
Well, it was the day that I got my Social Security check.
So, anyway, then I had to go to the bank and get the rest of that out.
So that gave me another day of going from place to place.
Then they wouldn’t let me sleep at night.
I had to stay up all night while they were on the phone.
And then the next day, same thing, you know, going from place to place.
So, I, I was just, I was really running on adrenalin.
[00:09:07] Bob: The implied threats are menacing.
You’re going to make me mad.
Got her right here,” you know.
So, you’d just better do what we say."
[00:09:59] Bob: Very, very menacing.
[00:10:38] Bob: So for four days they wouldn’t let you sleep?
We’re going to go for a drive."
And once in Mexico, they control her every move.
I said, “Yeah, I have one in my purse.”
[00:11:58] Bob: Border Patrol agents stopped her to do a full search.
This is no 5-minute pull-aside.
And I said, “Well there’s one in the console.”
So, they handcuffed me, took me to the back, frisked me.
They had the sniffer dogs all over my truck and all over me.
“What are you doing here?”
She doesn’t dare do anything to anger the kidnappers.
[00:12:49] Charlotte Robinette: Then they cuffed me.
My phone was on speaker, so I figured they were hearing.
[00:13:29] Charlotte Robinette: I just became kind of numb.
What could be worse?
You know, what, what else is going to happen.
The kidnappers must have hung up during the border search.
[00:14:17] Charlotte Robinette: I tried to call these guys back and they wouldn’t answer.
So, I called her.
[00:14:42] Charlotte Robinette: She says, “Hello?”
I said, “Kristin, are, are you okay?”
She says, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
I said, “Where are you?”
She said, “I’m sitting right here at my house.”
I’m like, “Oh (bleep),” you know.
Everything just sort of fell apart.
And I was, I was mad and relieved both at the same time.
I was so relieved that, that she was okay.
[00:15:07] Bob: Kristin was fine.
She was home the whole time.
She was never at risk.
She wasn’t kidnapped.
Uh, is, you know, is, was she kidnapped or not.
I mean, what is that like?
[00:15:52] Charlotte Robinette: Oh, it was, it was such a relief.
It was such a relief to hear her voice that she was okay.
And then I told her what happened, and of course she was very sympathetic and everything.
So, I was angry and relieved at the same time.
And I said, yeah.
So I, I went to my daughters, and they wouldn’t let me drive home.
They, they kept me overnight.
And they made some of Charlotte’s existing problems only worse.
It wasn’t the first time she spent money down to her last dollar.
[00:17:36] Charlotte Robinette: They got about $11,000.
And so I was just trying to get back on my feet.
[00:18:57] Bob: Wow.
Uh, that, that seems so beautiful to me.
[00:19:28] Charlotte Robinette: Yeah.
And, and the shock of it was none of them blamed me.
Don’t blame yourself.
And, but that is the hardest thing not to do.
And not fall apart or faint or do something.
I mean I; I just had a lot of strength it seems like.
[00:20:11] Bob: And obviously a lot of love for your daughter.
[00:20:14] Charlotte Robinette: Oh yeah.
[00:20:15] Bob: But the incident haunted her, still haunts her.
Western Union, I even went to a couple of those.
I went to some Walgreens.
And, and I drove pretty much all over the western part of the city.
And they, they’d ask, you know, “What are you driving?”
And I’d tell them.
Marti says many, many people think they’d never become a victim of a crime like virtual kidnapping.
They are dead wrong.
Um, and people just don’t want to admit that this is something that could happen to them.
[00:22:10] Marti DeLiema: Right.
[00:22:22] Marti DeLiema: Right, right.
[00:22:27] Bob: Her core message, anyone could be a victim of a scam.
[00:22:32] Marti DeLiema: I think that there is a scam out there for everyone.
And I’m a person who studies this.
[00:25:09] Marti DeLiema: This scam was effective because of the impact of fear arousal.
Um, fear is really what made um, Charlotte stay in that ether.
Um, and fear is what absolutely overrode her, her rational decision-making to think, wait a second.
This, this is just not plausible.
Um, because that is critical for their scam to be successful.
[00:25:52] Bob: Maybe Charlotte’s caring personality made her a good target for the criminals.
But Marti says, really, any parent is a target for a virtual kidnapping.
While the roadmap is generally about financial planning, it could help with scams too.
[00:26:56] Marti DeLiema: Absolutely.
What’s going on?
It really gives you, as the individual, more control over your future um, finances.
[00:28:01] Bob: I love this idea.
It’s pretty easy to set up warning text messages with your bank.
That would have been helpful during the initial moments of this crime, and with many crimes really.
And I said, “I wish I would have known that.”
[00:28:43] Bob: Well, but you didn’t.
[00:28:44] Charlotte Robinette: But when you know, you’re not used to technology.
We just got these phones, not, you know, not, shortly before all this happened.
So, I’m unfamiliar with these smart phones.
[00:28:54] Bob: And that’s one of the reasons she’s decided to share her story.
She wants other people to be familiar with the technology and with virtual kidnappings.
[00:29:38] Bob: I’m going to use a different word.
I’m going to say that you are caring.
So, you care a lot about people.
And, and that’s what they used against you is the fact that you’re caring.
[00:29:56] Charlotte Robinette: That’s true.
They found my weakest point.
I, I, you know, just finding how much I’m still loved and cared about.
Call the AARP Fraud Watch connection Helpline at 877-908-3360.
Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next.
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.
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