By Jack Schwed
An 85-year-old Wayland resident was home on March 18 when a laptop notification alerted her of a security breach and provided her a number to call for technical support. However, rather than being connected with a legitimate representative, the person on the other line was a scammer who told her to wire $63,200 to a “Barbara Winnie.”
The caller remained on the phone as the resident traveled to Middlesex Savings Bank in Wayland, where she asked employee Rick Suh to initiate the transaction, a police report shows. Immediately, Suh alerted his manager and contacted the Wayland Police Department.
After officers advised the resident, the scammer disconnected, and she did not lose any funds.
Mark Hebert, acting police chief of the Wayland Police Department, wrote in an email to the Wayland Post that these cases are “extremely hard” to investigate and prosecute when the victim loses money.
“The scammers use advanced techniques to mask who they are and where they are operating from,” he wrote. “Most of them operate internationally, and any follow-up is difficult after the funds have left a person’s account.”
Tyler Castagno, WPD’s detective sergeant, said scams are carried out against Wayland residents about once every month, but the magnitude of loss varies. He recounted a “heinous” case in which a resident sold their house for $800,000, after which a scammer convinced them to deposit around $500,000 of it into a fake escrow account.
However, in the case of the 85-year-old resident, loss was averted because, as Hebert noted in the email, the banks were “trained to spot possible victims of scams.”
Castagno said the police department is at the head of these efforts to protect residents from scams and fraudulent activity. About 10 years ago, he said, the department began distributing scam prevention pamphlets to bank stalls at every institution in Wayland that oversees the movement of money, particularly those that handle wire transfers.
“We were on the forefront of that in Wayland, and a lot of the banks have followed suit,” he said. “So it was very nice that the bank actually found out this was a scam.”
For several years, Castagno and Hebert have also held a training event on fraud prevention at the Wayland Council on Aging. “We definitely educate the public as much as we can,” Castagno said.
The police department also posts on its Facebook page about any active fraud in Wayland immediately after learning of it, he said. One example was a fraudulent email appearing to be from the Wayland Zoning Board of Appeals requesting money, which the department informed the community about on Facebook. As a result, Castagno said, the scammers stopped emailing Wayland residents but began targeting nearby towns.
“The interesting thing was, as soon as we stopped it, it was in Maynard, it was in Hudson, it was in Marlboro, it was in Weston,” he said.
While traditionally scammers target residents of all ages, he said, the cases he’s seen recently are “really targeting older people.”
Julie Secord, director of the Council on Aging, said older adults face anxiety due to the constant need to be wary of potential scams. “Unfortunately, the scammers can be very convincing with their calls,” she said. “Scammers making threats to terminate your benefits or arrest you if you do not pay a fee is intimidating.”
In addition to the police department, the COA has hosted presentations from government agencies and banks. The council tries to cover a variety of topics with these events, including reverse mortgages, internet fraud and email phishing scams, she wrote. Upcoming talks will focus on check-washing and quit-claim deed fraud.
“The Council on Aging strives to provide educational opportunities to inform older adults,” she wrote. “Our goal is not to scare residents but to empower them with information and the tools to become more astute observers.”
Castagno said the most common scam he’s encountered in his career is keystroking, in which an individual posing as a legitimate agency, such as the IRS, prompts someone over the phone to click on a link that grants the caller access to their computer. As a result, he said, the scammer can obtain the victim’s passwords and banking information and, in turn, transfer money to their own account.
Whenever a Wayland resident reports a scam, Castagno said he receives the initial police report, determines whether an investigation is necessary, and, if so, either handles it himself or delegates it to another detective with his support.
If the police department opens an investigation for a reported scam, the goal is to pinpoint the final destination of the funds, which can sometimes be difficult, he said. When the money ends up overseas, for instance, the police department’s jurisdiction no longer applies.
If the scammer is in the U.S., however, the police department tracks the routing number used to receive the victim’s money to identify the suspect’s name. Using this information, Castagno said, they can issue an arrest warrant for the suspect.
Castagno said the police department is always looking out for Wayland residents and their financial interests.
“We want to tell the public, slow down. Don’t do things hastily or impulsively,” he said. “If it is too good to be true, it probably is.”
This story is part of a partnership between the Wayland Post and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
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