Scammers are stealing millennials' inheritances. Billions lost?

Photo above - Is this your mother? Mary Livingston was scammed out of $450,000 when Wells Fargo allowed her to transfer the money to a flagged overseas scam artist. They said it's the customer's obligation to know . . . .

This morning I was going to lead with the story about the “shoplifter flash mob” of 100 people who stripped a gas station/mini-mart clean in 3 minutes, and the police didn’t show up for 3 hours. But how much could that have been? A million dollars at most? So what if he’s wiped out? There’s always another gas station a block away we can fill up at. Police don’t respond to 911 calls now unless there’s shots fired. And now there are proposals to send drones instead of patrol cars.

But what if someone steals billions? Trillions? And law enforcement doesn’t care and does nothing about it. That's what’s happening to the elderly. See link below.

“Sophisticated overseas criminals are stealing tens of billions of dollars from Americans every year, a crime wave which will get worse as the U.S. population ages. Technology like AI makes it easier than ever to perpetrate fraud and get away with it.”

Okay, some moron is cheering now. “Those effing boomers – serves ‘em right”. These are haters are too dumb to realize it's their own inheritances which are disappearing into thin air. Even if all you expected after you parents died was the deed to their 3-bedroom brick rancher in Ohio, you can kiss that goodbye. Once' your mom's bank account is wiped out, she'll have to sell the house. And probably apply for food stamps and welfare. Whose basement will you live in THEN?

I don’t blame local police for this. Officers like Dragnet’s Joe Friday and Bill Gannon don’t have the tools to investigate and bring to justice scammers from Russia, India, Vietnam, Pakistan, Nigeria, China . . . That’s the job of the US government. This is international wire fraud.

If there’s any coordinated effort to stop this, it’s not apparent. Overseas criminals and state sponsored hackers are also disabling hospitals, air traffic control systems, water supplies, the electric grid, and attempting upwards of 10,000 faux login attempts per hour at some corporate and military servers. This why your bank's website has "slow days".

The USA (under Obama) did indict some Chinese military brass for supervising theft and hacking. The government even published pictures of the perps. Of course there is zero chance these guys will ever be arrested, extradited, or put on trial. The US state department admitted as much . . . that this these charges were just a PR stunt. As far as anyone can tell, General Yin-Yang and Colonel Wun Hung Lo are still carrying out their duties. I doubt if President Biden brought it up with Chinese Premier Xi during their 10-course state banquet in San Francisco a few months ago. Maybe Biden was having another one of his own “slow days”? Or maybe the state department and DOJ just don't give a damn about us . . .

If Trump has a plan for this, or is even aware of the problem, he’s not letting on. As stated in previous columns, I’m not a member of either party, and not voting for either of these doddering idiots. So what can be done?

Banks, the Treasury Department, the CIA, and Internet Services Providers need to form a high level task force to address this. Not just the senior scams, but also ransomware and takedowns of the hospitals and infrastructure we depend on. In the short run, should we consider simply disconnecting from servers and data lines where these things originate? That’s what China does to keep it’s people in the dark about Google, western news reports, Russian atrocities, and democracy. Maybe China does have something to teach us about modern statecraft after all?

I’m just sayin’ . . .

~Scammers swipe billions every year and aren't slowing down | AP News~