Victim talks scam, loss

Scam Series – A victim’s view

MARYVILLE, Mo. — One local woman mustered the courage to talk about the ordeal that not only lost her a considerable amount of money, but also made her uncomfortable in her own home and embarrassed to talk about it.

SERIES INFORMATION

This is Part 4 of The Forum’s yearlong series about scams. With the ever-evolving nature of scams, new AI tech and faster communication, people of Nodaway County and northwest Missouri are falling victim, losing more than a million dollars to scams over the past five years.

The Forum is diving into the specifics of some of the most prevalent scam types being used in Nodaway County today, red flags to look out for and what local law enforcement, businesses and financial institutions are doing to stop the scams before they happen.

Find the previous stories online at maryvilleforum.com/news/scams.

The victim asked The Forum to withhold her name so that she would feel comfortable telling her story and hopefully help others who may be contacted by scammers in a similar fashion.

An elderly Maryville woman that The Forum will reference as Talula, lives alone, and in 2022 fell victim to a Publishers Clearing House scam that tricks the victim into thinking they’re due a check from Publishers Clearing House.

It started when Talula received a phone call and was told that she was one of four winners in a “Sweepstakes UPS Prize Patrol Home Delivery” and would be receiving $2.5 million in a Christmas raffle promotion.

Adding a false sense of urgency, “David Sayer,” who also provided Talula with a fake “prize patrol badge number,” told her that the crew was already in St. Joseph and was planning to deliver said funds around 3 p.m. that very same afternoon. However, she would need to pay the taxes on the winnings.

“This was supposed to be private, confidential business,” Talula said. “Tell nobody nothing.”

The “taxes” were to be paid through a $500 Visa prepaid gift card, Sayer told Talula, and so she purchased one from Walmart and provided the card number to “David.”

At around 2 p.m. the same day, allegedly just an hour before the crew was supposed to arrive, Talula received another phone call from an alleged manager and lawyer going by the name “Richard Stone.” He told her that she would need to get a cashier’s check from her bank in the amount of $5,825, then send it by FedEx to another person in Illinois.

Again, she was told “it was supposed to be a private business,” she said. “Tell nobody nothing.”

Spending $164, she sent that cashier’s check and told no one.

That was Friday. By Monday, Talula continued to receive calls, but the scammers had changed their story a bit, now telling her that she would receive $7,000 a month for life.

“They kept coming up with more stuff for me to do,” she said. “Every time they called, they wanted me to send them money.”

They had her send more funds — a cashier’s check for $44,000 — overnight to North Carolina, to allegedly pay for an IRS sponsorship of the program.

All the while, David and Richard continued to assure her that the overall payout would sustain her for the rest of her life.

Three days later, Richard called her back and wanted her to open a new bank account at a different bank, because she would soon be receiving and withdrawing huge amounts of money. She paid $100 to open a business account.

“Every time I went to the bank, they (asked) ‘Is this is a scam?’” Talula said. “Well, I could ‘tell nobody nothing,’ so I said no. They could tell looking at me that I was upset.”

Overall, the scam took place over several weeks from 2022 to 2023. In that time, Talula lost 20 pounds due to stress and illness.

“I wasn’t able to eat, it made me sick,” she told The Forum. “And, of course, I couldn’t sleep, so I was tired and I was sick and stressed.”

Others attempted to tell her she was being scammed. When she went to Edward Jones to begin pulling out of her savings, her representative, whom she had known for years and trusted, told her she was being scammed and that he was going to restrict her account for a minimum of 55 days for her own safety.

“I couldn’t tell anybody nothing,” she said. “But they (the scammers) were basically bankrupting me.”

HAVE YOU BEEN SCAMMED?

Contact the Maryville Police Department at 660-562-3209 if you think you have been the victim of a scam.

Later that day, David called again, asking for two more $1,000 gift cards and for her to package $4,000 in a book to send to someone in Reno, Nevada.

Talula said she was receiving phone calls multiple times a day from Richard and David who told her about their lives, including how wealthy they were. They wanted to fly her out in a private jet. They were so excited to give her this money. Eventually they were calling her at all hours of the day.

“Richard and David kept telling me they loved me,” Talula said. “Richard was supposed to be a Baptist Church Sunday School teacher. … He was dying to meet me. … None of this ever panned out, because every time I kept asking ‘when are you gonna give me my prize money,’ they kept stalling. … They always had excuses.”

When Edward Jones wouldn’t provide her funds to her, David located a car title loan place in St. Joseph and coached her on how to take out a loan on her car. Talula took out a $20,000 loan on the vehicle.

David had her divide that cash and send part of it to Nevada again, this time wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper.

“They just basically had me going all the time, working for them, sending them money,” Talula said.

Returning to the bank to withdraw the second $10,000, she said the bank refused to give it to her.

Put in a room at the bank with a bank scam specialist, Talula said, freaked her out, but they suggested she go to the police.

“I was afraid to go home and tell them,” she said. “So I decided then — I was afraid to stay home because I didn’t want Richard and David calling me again because I didn’t know what to tell them — that I was going to go the police.”

Finally feeling safe at the police station, Talula spent the entire day working with local police and copying her copiously kept notes on the entire affair, which she’d recorded in shorthand that she’d learned during her days as a secretary. One officer even shared their meal with her, “a casserole that was really good. That kinda pepped me up.”

After writing out 23 pages of notes, she headed home around 2 a.m.

“The phone rang twice, about 10 times each, and I did not answer it,” Talula said.

The next morning, around 7:30 a.m., it began ringing nonstop. Officers came by and suggested she change her phone number, even helped her do so. One brought her new phones with caller ID on them. An officer even took her to St. Joseph to pay back the title loan on her car.

Before the scam began, Talula had a bank account with $57,000 in it. By the end of this ordeal, it was empty, and she was in debt. After reporting the crime, officers worked with banks and the cashier’s checks were able to be stopped and much of Talula’s funds were able to be retrieved.

However, about a week later, a taxi showed up at Talula’s door. One that she didn’t call for. The driver knocked on her door, holding out a phone, with someone alleging to be her grandson.

“Richard was on his cellphone and wanted to talk to me,” she said, explaining that she waved the phone in the air and gave it back. “This whole session terrified me.”

Because she had changed her phone number, the scammer couldn’t reach her, but found a courier to make real-world contact. Just last week, a similar situation occurred in St. Louis, ending in the death of an Uber driver that 81-year-old William Brock believed was involved with the scammers who had called him earlier in the morning.

Now, just over a year later, Talula said she finally feels financially secure again. She’s gained back the 20 pounds of weight she lost during the two-to-three-week ordeal, though she jokes that she should probably try to lose it again.

“It was terrifying,” Talula said. “I wish I would have hung up on them.”

Now with her new phones, she doesn’t answer any number she doesn’t recognize. While Talula said she doesn’t have all the important ones memorized yet, she’s working on it.

Her advice to people who may receive this kind of call?

“Just don’t answer the phone (if you don’t know the number),” she said. “I tried to be careful in the past. It just took me off guard.

“It sounded so good.”