The Perfect Scam

Rob, a veteran in his 70’s, was a caretaker for his wife for years. He is still grieving her death when he receives a call from a woman claiming to be from social security. The woman tells Rob that his social security number has been used to defraud multiple banks and there is a warrant out for his arrest. Even more troubling for Rob, the woman tells him that he will need to get all new identification cards. Rob has been looking forward to taking his special needs daughter on a much needed vacation and worries he won’t be able to get a new license in time for the trip. In a frenzied state, he begins to comply with the instructions of the woman on the phone. But as her directions get stranger, Rob begins to question if he’s doing the right thing. He realizes that he may be the victim of a scam. Unfortunately, by this time the scammers have already emptied out Rob’s savings account. Rob is distraught as this means he’ll have to cancel his trip with his daughter. But, just when he’s about to lose all hope, Rob’s community steps in to help.

After 26 years of service, U.S. Army Col. Bryan Denny retires from an incredible career in the military and begins to receive odd messages. They’re coming from women around the world who claim to be in online relationships with him. But Bryan isn’t on any dating sites. Meanwhile Kathy Walters is learning about the online boyfriend of her friend Sharon. They plan to marry, but Sharon has never met the man in person because he claims to be in the military stationed overseas. Sharon shows Kathy a picture of the man she knows as Ross, but the name on his uniform reads Bryan Denny. Unsure if her friend is in a real romance or caught up in romance scam, Kathy begins to investigate. She heads to Facebook, and what she finds is shocking. The same picture Kathy’s friend has fallen in love with is featured in multiple profiles across the internet under a wide variety of names. That’s when Kathy knows she needs to track down the real Bryan Denny. After some digging, Kathy is able to locate him and reaches out to see if Bryan has any knowledge of what’s going on. Bryan has been fielding calls, emails and sometimes in-person visits from women who’ve fallen in love with his picture. Together, Bryan and Kathy uncover hundreds of fraudulent social media and dating site accounts that are using Bryan’s image, as well as images of his family members, to entice women into romance scams. Disgusted by what they’ve found, Kathy and Bryan decide to fight back against these scammers.

TripAdvisor and the Federal Communications Commission are conducting separate investigations into the same series of robocalls that have caused a public nuisance. The FCC became aware of the calls when they shut down a paging service used to communicate with emergency personnel. TripAdvisor began to investigate when its customers reported that these calls were fraudulently using the travel site’s name to sell vacation packages. Finally, after months of investigating, the head of TripAdvisor’s anti-fraud (“anti-fraud,” not “fraud” team) team, Fred Garvin, gets a break in the case. He personally receives one of the robocalls that have been plaguing TripAdvisor’s customers. Working backward to find the source of the call, TripAdvisor gathers the information it needs to track down where the calls are coming from. Once it has sufficient evidence, TripAdvisor reaches out to the FCC. To the website’s surprise, the FCC has also been tirelessly investigating the same robocalls. Now working together, TripAdvisor and the FCC build a case against the source of the calls, “Robocall King” Adrian Abramovich. The FCC finds that in a three-month period,  Abramovich is responsible for making more than 96 million robocalls. These illegal calls use the names of companies such as TripAdvisor, Marriott, Expedia, and Hilton to trick victims into purchasing vacation packages. With the culprit identified, the FCC gets to work shutting down Abramovich’s operation.

The average American is on the receiving end of more than 150 robocalls a year. Some robocalls, which are automated telephone calls placed by a computerized auto dialer, have legitimate purposes. Unfortunately, many of these calls are used to pester or scam consumers. In June 2019 alone Americans received 4.35 billion robocalls, with scams and telemarketing making up over 50 percent. Curious about the barrage of robocalls he himself receives, journalist Alex Palmer decides to look into how robocalls work and why they’ve become so popular. He finds that advances in technology and the low cost of placing robocalls—as little as 4 cents per dial—have made this nuisance a popular marketing tool for scammers. After digging deeper into the trend, Alex discovers the case of a set of illegal robocalls that temporarily stalled a Virginia-based paging provider, disrupting the ability of hospitals to get in touch with emergency services personnel. As a result, local doctors, nurses, EMTs and firefighters were at risk of missing critical pages. Due to the resulting public safety hazard, the Federal Communications Commission made tracking down the source of these robocalls a top priority. Meanwhile, travel-review website TripAdvisor is being inundated with complaints from customers that it is soliciting them through robocalls to use its travel rewards program. But TripAdvisor isn’t making the calls and doesn’t have a rewards program. With its reputation at stake, TripAdvisor puts its top fraud experts on the case. The FCC and the travel site will eventually learn that they are on the hunt for the same man, Adrian Abramovich.

In a Texas suburb, a typical lottery scam has turned into something much more sinister. A scammer has promised a retired couple a fictitious lottery payout if they continue to send him money for fees and taxes. With their life savings gone, the victims are forced to sell their home. But the swindler isn’t done with them yet, as his constant calls have created a bond between him and the 70-year-old woman, who may be suffering from dementia. He realizes that she has grown fond of him and pivots from a lottery to a romance scam. He promises her a beautiful life together on the sandy beaches of Jamaica, where he’s based. The con man tells her that all he needs is money in order to start building an oceanfront dream home that they can share. To come up with the funds, he proposes a disturbing plan. He demands that she kill her husband and flee to Jamaica with the proceeds of their home sale. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which has been monitoring a trail of cash making its way from the U.S. to the scammer in Jamaica, discovers the couple in Texas and sends an agent to their home. When the agent arrives, little does he know he’s about to walk into a murder plot.

A woman in a Texas suburb is enjoying her retirement years with her husband when she gets a call that will change their lives. According to the voice on the phone, she’s won an overseas lottery. Millions of dollars and a new luxury car will be delivered to her front door. But before she can collect the cash and other prizes, she must send money to the man on the phone. At first, she’s told she needs to pay taxes, then lawyers’ fees. As the demands to send cash mount, her bank account is drained. Nine months later, the couple has lost everything and is forced to sell their home. Lottery scams are on the rise in the U.S., with more than a half-million complaints in North America in the past three years. The island nation of Jamaica is a hotbed for this criminal activity. These scams have cost Americans millions of dollars and led to increased gang warfare in Jamaica that has upped the murder rate there. To combat this growing issue, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Jamaica Constabulary Force, along with other U.S. agencies, are dedicating resources to shut down lottery scams. One postal inspector came across a scammer’s financial trail that led back to the Texas couple who’d been drawn in by a lottery scam. When the inspector arrived in Texas, he couldn’t believe what he found: Not only had the scammer drained the couple’s savings, but he was now operating a romance scam — with the woman as his target.

Desiree, the “Sweetheart Swindler,” has made off with $15,000 of 76-year-old Jim’s money. Once a millionaire, Jim lost his real estate empire during the recession, and now thanks to Desiree he has also lost the savings he worked tirelessly to rebuild. Desiree has moved on to a new mark, Doug, a veteran living in Nevada. This time around Desiree’s husband joins her in the con, approaching Doug in a parking lot and offering to come to his home to fix dents in his car. On one such visit, Desiree tags along. Eventually she starts to visit Doug on her own. Each time she enters Doug’s house she gathers information, stealing his Social Security number and other personal information. Doug, who has always been close with his sister Patty, calls her when things start to go missing from his home. Patty arrives to find Doug’s life in complete disarray. There are papers and unopened mail covering every surface of his house. Patty digs in,  finding multiple credit cards in Doug’s name that he knows nothing about. There are bills for women’s clothes, dinners, cash advances and even a car. Wracked with debt that he can’t account for, Doug is on the verge of losing his house. After talking to Doug’s home health care worker, Patty figures out that the bills may be connected to a woman who makes frequent visits to the house. Patty tries to track down this woman. Meanwhile, authorities in Texas, where Desiree has a home, are also on the hunt for her, but she’s skipped town. Little does Desiree know that her crime spree is coming to an end: Authorities in Texas have tracked her to an address in Nevada — Doug’s.

Jim spent much of his life building a real estate empire on the West Coast. In the process he became a millionaire, profiled in newspapers and on television. But in 2007, when the recession hit, Jim lost his vast fortune. At 76, Jim is running a small resort in Lake Tahoe, working to slowly rebuild his finances, when he receives a mysterious call. The woman on the other end of the line asks for Jim by name. She introduces herself as Desiree and asks if Jim remembers her. He doesn’t, but Desiree is unfazed, claiming to have met Jim at the resort while she was a guest. She wants to get to know him better and before the call ends, Desiree has arranged another trip to the resort to visit a flattered Jim. Desiree arrives with a business opportunity for Jim, who quickly realizes she thinks he’s still wealthy. She’s visibly disappointed to find that Jim’s house is no longer a mansion but a renovated Airstream trailer. At every turn of the visit, Desiree finds a reason to ask Jim for money — she needs investors for a new business and money to pay a family member’s mortgage — but Jim isn’t in a position to lend or invest money. Desiree decides it’s time to go home. When Jim returns from taking her to the airport, he has an uneasy feeling. He looks to make sure the checkbook the resort keeps to pay vendors is still there. It is, but the stash of cash he keeps in the same drawer, the little savings he has left, is gone. Jim immediately contacts the authorities, but Desiree, who will eventually come to be known as the “Sweetheart Swindler,” is just getting started.

Bobby Thompson was once a respected fundraiser, generating millions of dollars for his charity, the U.S. Navy Veterans Association. When a Florida journalist uncovers that the charity is a scam, Thompson goes on the run. Eventually he starts a new life as “Don Morsette” in Portland, Ore. Living in a boardinghouse and claiming to work as a consultant for Boeing, Thompson thinks he’s outsmarted the U.S. marshals hunting him. He even keeps a DVD of the movie “Catch Me if You Can” and $1 million in cash in a storage locker. But the marshals arrest him outside his home, ending their two-year manhunt. Although they know Thompson is the man they’ve been looking for, marshals still don’t entirely know who he is. Thompson refuses to give his real name, signing court documents as “Mr. X.”    Who is Bobby Thompson, and what led him to steal money meant for veterans? Federal investigators are determined to answer these questions. While he sits in jail awaiting trial, they dive back into the case, speaking to people who knew the man who called himself Bobby Thompson. In the end, these conversations reveal two clues, a haircut and eye drops, that will ultimately uncover Thompson’s true identity. 

The man known to Washington’s elite and powerful politicians as Captain Bobby Thompson has disappeared. Due to an investigation by a Florida-based journalist, it’s been revealed that Thompson’s charity, the US Navy Veterans Association, is an elaborate scam. For years this charity has fraudulently collected millions of dollars under the guise of supporting military veterans. Rather than face up to his crimes, when a warrant is issued for his arrest, Thompson goes on the run. U.S. marshals are hot on his trail, but with more than 19 fake ids, Thompson is a hard man to catch. Every time authorities close in on him he proves to be one step ahead of them. Nearly two years go by, but law enforcement refuses to give up the chase. Finally, in 2012, a man going by the name of Don Morrissette shows up in Portland. He rents a room in a boarding house and claims to be a consultant for Boeing but spends his days at a local bar. It’s in this bar that U.S. marshals catch up with Bobby Thompson.