One Man Lost $740k to Scammers Targeting His Retirement Savings

"Mr. Smith came up with another idea: Roll the I.R.A. over to a different institution. That worked. Mr. Heitin now had $834,000 in the new I.R.A., which he emptied in under two weeks, with no questions asked by the new provider, and moved the money into bank accounts."

bitsaboutmoney wrote an article about this issue recently. I had no idea there was so little verification in these types of cases.

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/how-acats-transfers-w...

My condolences for Mr. Heitin.

But the story feels a bit off, I mean investigator named "Charles Hunt" and then "Hayden Smith" immediately feels like made up names. If I called my bank and they told me about investigations, my first instinct is to visit a local branch the next day and talk to an actual person sitting at an actual desk inside the actual branch and get some info about what was happening.

That being said, these scams are designed in such manner that, the callers you are talking to are immensely convincing and build a sense of urgency. One trick I learned during security training at my workplace is, if someone calls and claims to be someone specific, I should tell them that I will call them back or visit them in-person to discuss the matter next day if possible. This approach alone saved me countless hours and pissed off a lot of scammers calling me up at random weeks claiming that my name came up in a crime ring police and europol is investigating and they need my personal info.

> For Mr. Heitin, it began in September, when he was unable to log into his 401(k) retirement account. When he tried again several days later, he got in, but the screen quickly changed and instructed him to call the 401(k) provider’s fraud department.

I wonder what triggered this. His computer was hacked? A phishing email leading him to the wrong site (but why the delay?)

What's stopping US to actually implement wide scale sanctions on India? Does US fear a retaliation from the third world?

This is happening way to often, as people are way to trusting.

We have AI assistants intercept and screen all email/phone calls for office use, be nice if there was a personal version.

they can't keep getting away with it