Help: Mom got money scammed

[Teknique]

So my mother got money scammed out of 1200 dollars. Now she cant make rent/carpayment/otherbills. I am currently on the phone with western union now. I have several names and phone numbers i can report as well as a whole lot of emails with bad grammer and they look like they were done by different people(some bolded, some not). Is there a bigger business i should report this to or is western union and money gram the only ones?
I also have a few dozen texts where the person is generally unprofessional and an ass.
I have no clue what to do as i have been on hold for about 15 minutes. I called the stores where she got the money orders from (Or at least publix for three of the five) and they gave me the western union number. Please assist. No clue what to do!
If it helps we live in georgia and some of the money was being sent to arizona.


finially answered after 30 mins, Being transferrred to fraud services.
Ok they say i have to go to the local police after i contact them with the numbers. No idea if we get the money back or not...

Anyway after talking to the police and everything theres not shit. Moneygram and WU dont do refunds. We are boned. No rent when its due this week. Why do people believe the internets lies.

[vagus]

Why'd your mom send $1200 to someone?

I expect African prince jokes to be incoming.

[Teknique]

She expected a 30000 dollar us grant. why the fuck she thought sending money to get money would work. I have no idea.

[Kerberoz]

WU can't do shit. That's why all the scammers use them. Gonna need more details. If the scammer is outside the US, you have pretty much no chance of recovery, afaik.

Hopefully you've already given her a stern talk about the internet and trust.

Read this for catharsis: http://www.419eater.com/html/bigman.htm

[Correction]

I don't like your chances at recovery here. WU scams are still used today because there's no safety net for whoever sends the money. At all. You can call your state attorney's general office but all they can do is file the crime and then do nothing about it.

[Aragon of Odin]

I got scammed buying a cell phone 10 years ago, I lodged a complaint through E-Bay, 5 years after it happened the cops showed up at my door to take a statement lol, I even asked them if they realized it'd been 5 years. Apparently Interpol had opened up a case against this guy, so the local police were asked to get a statement from me. 5 years since giving my statement and I'm still waiting to get my money back!!

Seriously though, good luck trying to get it back, though it could be a very lengthy process even if you do see a penny back from it

[Teknique]

Many thanks kerb, Not even halfway done reading that yet and i already feel much better, Albeit incredibly poor.

[Ggrab]

I work for western union

report the MO as stolen , if you have the Bottom part of the moneyorder tell them you going to fill it up and send it to them ( it also a $15 fee) that should put a STOP PAYMENT ON THEM!!!
No bank or cashier place can cash them if they already have a "STOP PAYMENT"


bad news is that you won't get the money right away , it just take time for the Investigation & stuff but you will get your money back Eventually ( about 2 - 3 months )


After you reported it stolen then you should fill a police report for Proper record

[Teknique]

Police report has been filed, Unfortunately my mom sent them super early in the day, around 9-10 am and i didnt get off work till 4, so i didnt know about it. WU and mg said they were cashed around 1130ish. And there is nothing they can do except file the complaint with fraud services

[Ggrab]

This happen alot and more offen then you think.

If anything tell ur mom to take it as a learning experience & not to trust nobody over the phone

[Necronus]

My mother just fell for one of those "let us dial into your computer scams" ... luckily she was too poor to pay them money when they got to that part of the call. Still had to do damage control on the crap they installed.

[BaneTheBrawler]

My parents always taught me that unless I either initiate the call or was expecting it, I should never give out my info over the phone. It's worked well.

[hey]

Tell her not to send money to Nigerian princes. I hope that lesson was worth $1200, because she's never getting it back.

[Titanss]

I'm confused why she would send this with rent due. What kind of grant was it?

[Xantavia]

I'm confused why she would send this with rent due. What kind of grant was it?

Guessing it was one of those "We have money for you, just need a check to cover paperwork before we can release it".

[Uzor]

Always file a police report before you contact companies, that way they are more likely to take you seriously.

Either way, the odds of your mom getting any money back is slim to none, unfortunately. The money she get scammed out of is not high enough to lead to any serious investigation, that is why scammers love private people. Stealing small amounts of money from thousands of people is more beneficial than stealing high amounts of money from a company or private person, as the odds of getting away with it is higher as each case is usually treated separately, and will therefor be buried under a stack of low-priority cases.

[BaneTheBrawler]

also, anyone else misread the title as "Mommy got scammed" ?

[niacin]

I don't know how people fall for these things! It's sad. I work at a bank and have seen old people fall for it before. Part of our job as a teller is to gently inquire what the funds are for to help our clients avoid these situation.

Unfortunately when I was still new to the job an older man came in and withdrew $5000 to send via western union to his grandson that had been in an accident and came back again later for another $5000 to send..... I didn't think about it at the time and it was too late before it dawned on me that it was a likely a scam. I never found out either way but when I think about it I really feel like I failed that man.

[Nephlite]

I've taken a few reports from people about scams like this. Usually once you get the ball rolling on the investigation, you can only hope you can prevent other people from getting scammed the same way. As other people have said, your chances of getting the money back are slim to none. Depending on the severity of the crime, proceeds can be up for civil forfeiture and the victims take the loss on the chin, however, this doesn't apply to online and wire transfers as they're just data being shifted around and can easily be placed back in to the victim's account. Unfortunately, if the suspect ended up cashing it out for hard cash, the trace will lead back to the bank and they can front the investigative findings to insurance and get restitution that way. It seems like a pain but I always recommend people to purchase fraud insurance whenever they're wiring money so they can get something back if it goes wrong. I don't know for sure if Western Union has that option but sometimes banks will offer protection for transfers over $500.

Even more scary are the phone calls you get in the dead of night where one guy says a family member/relative/etc. has been captured and in order to bail them out you need to transfer cash to the caller to prevent "anything from happening to them." Had one guy file a report (he's from Brazil and a student at a local university) where the caller threatened him and said his brother was going to die if he didn't transfer the money. Even went so far as to send him a doctored up photo of the kids brother all beat up and blood everywhere. They took a Facebook picture of the kids brother and shopped it up to look real. He was looking for advice so I went on Facebook and found the real picture then had him call his family. Wasn't till he confirmed his brother was okay that he told me he wired $50,000 from his student account to the perps. Traced the call back to a wall phone inside a Mexican prison. Called the guards there and they gave us the complete run-around.

Luckily the kid was a Navy Federal member with protection plans in place and they were able to get him some restitution (only about half). He ended up having to go to Title Max and pawned a few things of his to get enough cash to make his next student payment. Unfortunately once he exhausted all his cash options he ended up defaulting on his loan and ended up having to drop out. That's an extreme case of fraud but it's an option if you guys are strapped for cash, try to see if you can get some valuables you don't care about or a Title Max loan to front you the cash at least for rent. It's better than getting evicted.

[Alvinho]

Damn Brazilians...