'It ended up being $30K': Vancouver senior loses life savings to phone scam

It started with a phone call.

It ended with a 76-year-old Vancouver pensioner losing her life savings.

“I’m at a loss at how he could have tricked me,” said Dianne, a retired nurse who is speaking out with the hopes of preventing other seniors from becoming victims. CTV News has chosen not to publish her last name.

Her ordeal began last month when a man called, saying her nephew was in jail and desperately needed money to get bail.

“There was this voice whispering,” Dianne recalls.

“He said you need to send, I think it was $2,000…I went to UPS and mailed cash, which I should (have) known better,” she said.

Dianne said the calls continued with more urgent appeals for money. Five times she sent money. She thought she was helping a nephew in trouble, but instead had been drawn into a fraudster’s lie.

“It ended up being $30,000 in the end because he kept calling back,” she explained.

The calls only stopped when she ran out of money.

“I said, ‘I don’t have any more money. You’ve got all my money’...I never heard from him again.”

Vancouver police are once again warning the public about this phone scam that preys on vulnerable seniors.

“What usually happens is someone will make a call to somebody advising that their loved one is in some kind of danger, possibly in jail and they need money for bail,” said Const. Tania Visintin.

“If someone is in jail, no police officer, no court attendant, no sheriff will ever call you and ask you for money for bail,” she said.

“If you do get a call like this, it’s a fraud and you need to hang up right away.”

She said some thieves have become bolder, even showing up at a person’s door to collect money.

“Obviously, that’s more concerning for us,” said Visintin who encourages family members to speak with elderly relatives about the scam in an effort to raise awareness.

Police say thieves also target victims by gleaning information about them through social media.

However, Dianne, who doubts she will ever see any of her stolen money again, doesn’t think that’s how she became a target.

She thinks she was picked randomly, simply by answering her phone.

Dianne said she feels distress, regret and fear. She also worries about how she will pay the bills.

“Horrible nightmares now. I never had them before,” she said.