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FightFraudAmerica.com went live about six months before the refocusing of two of the fraud-fighting support organizations known primarily by their initials. One of the assignments given to the four-letter agency was to take three years to design and implement an educational public interface web site, one that would act as a central reservoir of information, enabling citizens to empower themselves with knowledge and to avoid becoming victims of fraud. In theory it was a wonderful mission; in actuality FFA had mostly fulfilled the mission already and was up and running.
We still are. With a ragtag bunch of investigative volunteers, a few databases at our disposal, and some highly creative outside- of-the-box approaches dictated by no governmental agency, we do everything that we can to alert, to educate, and to help. Referrals come in from throughout the world, although our primary audience seems to be North Americans.
In the March/April (2013) issue, we mentioned the Milanes case, centered in Costa Rica but claiming victims throughout the world. Having uncovered a hornet’s nest of damning information, we sent the black and white proof to the report-filing victims with the suggestion that they get it introduced into the Costa Rican courts. The process of justice does not work the same in Central American countries as it does (or sometimes doesn’t) in the US. Bribery is commonplace, “documentation” is often manufactured after the fact, criminals simply cross a Central American border to a neighboring country that recognizes money as a free passport, and victims die of old age before the system works on their behalf. Getting a case break is a crap shoot. At this writing, our efforts have been on a winning run. The victims were able to get our findings introduced into the Courts and those findings were easily verifiable. The perp appeared to have intentionally misled and misrepresented to the highest court in the country — and in this case his nefarious actions were not met with a smile and a wink of amusement. This court was PO-ed.
As of today, justice is incomplete. However, victims have recently been receiving installments of lost and hidden money on a somewhat regular basis and the catalyst was quite probably that “can you help us” inquiry to Fight Fraud America. While the system moves slowly in foreign lands, at least it moves. Sometimes we save a fortune. Sometimes we save a life.
Referrals primarily come in from the US. We sort, we assign, and then we hope for the best. In most cases, the crime has already been committed. In rare instance we can recover what has been lost; in the rest we settle for stopping the flow. It is the former that encourages us.
One referral came from the adult daughter of an 82-year-old widower we will call Charles. Charles had buried his wife of 60 years just three months earlier. Anna’s last month had been spent in at-home hospice care, without pain because of wonder drugs like morphine, and surrounded by her husband, children and grandchildren. Even a peaceful passing has a profound effect on an elderly surviving spouse; sixty years is a long time. Charles stayed with one of his children for the first week after Anna died. He returned to his memoryfilled home on the eighth day. Shortly after Charles walked in the door, the telephone rang.
The call was from Sue, the hospice care worker who had attended to Anna. Sue, a seemingly gentle person in her early forties, told Charles that her job was not quite complete. “I must pick up and dispose of all of the remaining medications. May I come over this afternoon?” Charles thought the request sounded reasonable and had no objections. “Thank you, Sue, for taking such good care of Anna. Of course you may come over and do what is necessary.”
Sue’s idea of doing what was necessary included far more than hauling off a treasure trove of class three drugs. Sue had a whole different plan. She arrived at the $3 million dollar Hollywood Hills home-witha- view and started right in on Charles. “Anna was so lucky to have such a fine, attentive, loving, supportive, (blah, blah, blah, blah) man like you at her side ….” She told him how she had watched the past month, so happy for Anna but so envious for herself, because she had never known such love or devotion. More blah, blah, blah, blah. You can imagine the rest.
Sweetheart swindles, romance scams, whatever the name du jour, are surely the most heartbreaking of all the files handled by FFA. They are also steadily on the rise. The news on Sue was not good; her background was sketchy and there were two of her in one place (the probability was that she was using a relative’s identification to get the job because the “other Sue” had been around for a traceably longer period of time.) Our investigator can vouch for the fact that there is no job worse than that of doing a victim intervention that entails emotionally beating up an 82-year-old man.
Charles is alive and well, dating a 78-year old widow woman he met through his church. Sue is undoubtedly off to her next target; surely not Sue any longer because that person disappeared in the midst of our investigation and the other presumably “real” Sue claimed no knowledge of anyone else using her identity. We win a few. We lose more. But still we go on trying.
No matter where you live/work, if you are a seasoned investigator who can donate a few hours of your time to help a stranger, please let us know. Fight Fraud America exists because the world needs us to exist … and because people within our industry are selfless enough to help those who need it most. And if you’re a Fortune 500 donations director, every dollar that comes in to FFA allows our very small effort to continue its work against a very big problem.