Important case about older scam victim. I’ve reported before about William Brock, an 81 year old Ohio man who shot and killed an Uber driver who came to his house to pick up $12,000 for a grandparent scam. Apparently he had been told that his nephew was in a car crash in Charleston and had been arrested. Brock tried to get the phone from the Uber driver, which she refused, and he shot her when she tried to leave. Brock called 911, the police came, and the police answered two subsequent calls from the scammer, who said he was with the police himself. Brock is charged with felony murder.
The news articles give a few interesting facts
Apparently Uber assisted. The phone call to the Uber driver was from Canada, and was from a burner phone. And there are some questions the articles don’t answer/
- Was this the first time Brock had provided money in this scam?
- Was the Uber driver aware that this was a scam? Or was she simply being paid to pick up a package?
- Why did the scammer want to know what hospital the driver had been taken to?
- Was there any other useful information on her phone?
- Were they able to track the credit card number used by Uber?
New Australia Anti-Scam Centre issues first report, for 2023
- Complaints up 18.5%
- Reported losses down a bit from $3.1 billion to $2.74 billion
- Top frauds reported were investments (likely crypto romance fraud); tech support fraud, and romance fraud
Warnings issued across the US and Canada of huge spurt in text messages claiming fines are owed for speed cameras and road tolls. Example
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center releases 2023 report on fraud against victim over 60
- Complaints up 14% over 2022
- Losses reported of $3.4 billion
- Tech support by far the most common fraud
- Biggest losses were in crypto investment frauds
- 15% paid by crypto
