‘Emotional hackers’ scam $800K from Minneapolis woman’s father
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A Minneapolis woman calls it emotional hacking: Scammers drained $800,000 from her father’s bank account.
He’s a 76-year-old Ukrainian immigrant with limited English skills. He sold his home in Washington State in April and essentially became homeless a week later.
"I feel bad, very bad," said scam victim Bogdan Nalivaiko.
He's living out of a Motel 6 these days, a far cry from the 2,300 square-foot home he sold just a couple of months ago, eight years after his wife, Elena, passed away. He planned to live the rest of his life off the proceeds. But by the time movers came, Nalivaiko couldn’t pay, prompting a call to his daughter.
"He’s like ‘Yeah, you’ll see,'" said his daughter, Julia Elders. "And then I pressed him and pressed him and pressed him and finally he relented and said ‘I won sweepstakes.’ And I’m like ‘oh no.’"
Elders is the marketing and communications director at the St. Paul Jewish Federation, so she lives almost 1,700 miles away from her father. She knew what happened right away, but the scammers worked so quickly, she was too late.
The crooks called and texted Nalivaiko every day, convincing him to send cashier’s checks in amounts up $50,000, chipping away at his $800,000 balance.
"From April 26 to May 3, it went to zero," Elders said.
FOX 9 followed the trail of the rip-off artists to phone numbers and addresses all across the country. One number is connected to Exquisite Party Management in Florida. It’s a party entertainment service registered to Jenica Jones, which is also the name on two of the $50,000 cashier’s checks Nalivaiko sent.
We got Jones on the phone, but she hung up after this exchange.
"This man was scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars and he sent you more than $50,000 in cashier’s checks," a FOX 9 reporter said to Jones.
"So what does that have to do with me?" she responded.
"Well, like I said, he sent you more than $50,000 in cashier’s checks and I’m trying to figure out why."
Listening to that brief conversation with someone possibly connected to the scheme brought Elders to tears.
"I keep coming up against this feeling of like how deep this is going," she said. "It’s really hard to wrap your head around the types of people that are involved, what other things they’re doing, what other kinds of crime is also being committed with this money."
Elders says Chase and Bank of America should’ve recognized the unusual transactions and stepped in.
"He doesn’t know what’s happening," she said. "He doesn’t know. He thinks the bank works for him. They let him withdraw $200,000 in the same day at two different branches. Are you kidding me?"
We reached out to the banks and both told us they needed more time to investigate the situation.
"I think banks are in the same position as us where they would like to prevent this before it even happens," said Seattle FBI Special Agent in Charge Kelly Smith.
The FBI is also investigating and Elders talked to an agent just before our interview, but she’s not convinced they’ll be able to scrape back much of her father’s money - if any.
"And the onus is on me," she said. "The FBI told me you have to be your own little sleuth."
The mover who tipped Elders off to her father’s problem is also still helping him out.
Joe Kenney is now working with Elders to help get her father in a more stable living situation and the online fundraiser should help with that.
But Nalivaiko’s savings have vanished and he’ll live off a $1,600 per month Social Security income from here on out.
The FBI says elder fraud victims reported $3.1 billion in losses to their Internet Crime Complaint Center in 2022. That’s an 84% increase from 2021 and Elder warns it’ll get worse as AI improves, especially in mimicking voices.
Tips from federal agents:
Prevention and public awareness are key. Once money has been transferred, especially overseas, it can be difficult to get back. However, the FBI and our law enforcement partners do our best to disrupt the criminal activity, but quick reporting to law enforcement is essential. Victims may be embarrassed to report to law enforcement, but fraud reported weeks or months later may be impossible to stop. We encourage people to resist the urgency the scammer attempts to create, possibly over the phone, and do their research separately. Individuals can also talk to their family, friends, and financial institution before sending any money to avoid becoming a scam victim.
Consumers who believe they are the victim of a scam should:
• Contact their financial institution immediately upon suspecting or discovering a fraudulent transfer.
• Ask their bank to contact the financial institution where the fraudulent transfer was sent.
• Contact law enforcement.
• File a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.IC3.gov, regardless of dollar loss. Provide all relevant information in the complaint.
A family friend started a GoFundMe to help Nalivaiko with living expenses. Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Tyler Lockett contributed $2,000 and, he also posted about it on social media. As of Saturday morning, the page has raised over $16,000.