'It ended up being $30K': Vancouver senior loses life savings to phone scam
CTV
It started with a phone call and it ended with a 76-year-old Vancouver pensioner losing her life savings.
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.