In the scam convincing people their bank accounts or computers have been compromised, most known victims are retirement-aged adults and Hinds believes many others may be too embarrassed or afraid of potentially losing independence over their financial decision-making to come forward and report they’ve been defrauded. A smaller percentage of victims are immigrants, with scammers using someone’s fear over their immigration status as a lever to persuade them to comply, Hinds said.
But people of all ages and educational levels fall victim to scams, he said.
“I can recognize and sympathize with that human reaction of embarrassment or shame but would encourage people to report, report, report.”
While similar scams are going on nationwide, the first known instance in the state was in February 2024, and in King County six months later, Hinds said. The Edmonds Police Department is investigating a case involving someone who was deceived into handing over $870,000, while in King County, one person was duped into giving up nearly $315,000, he said. From the 21 known King County victims, scammers have taken a combined $1.8 million.
But those high dollar amounts are taken in smaller chunks over time, as scammers repeatedly circle back to people they’ve previously conned, Hinds said.
“These cases are actually really hard to investigate and really hard to prosecute,” he said, which is why police and prosecutors are urging victims to report suspected crimes so they can get a better picture of the true scope.
From the victims who’ve come forward, Hinds said the scam always starts with some kind of electronic communication such as a pop-up message on a home computer, an email or a text message. The victim’s initial contact will claim to be a representative of a government institution — for instance, the FBI or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — a bank, or a company like Microsoft or Geek Squad.
“The ultimate claim is that the victim has had an account compromised or had their identity stolen,” Hinds said, though in some cases, victims are told their computers are infected with a virus or malware.
The victim is directed to click on a link and provide a phone number or call a number directly, putting them in contact with the scammer, Hinds said.
“Oftentimes, they’ll bring in a second scammer claiming to be a representative of a different trusted entity,” he explained, “so scammer No. 1 will claim to be from the FDIC and scammer No. 2 will claim to be from the Social Security Administration.”
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At this point, victims are told the only way to protect their money is to withdraw cash from their bank accounts, put it in a box, and then have a courier pick it up to then take it to the FDIC or FBI for safekeeping, Hinds said. Sometimes victims are told to convert the cash into gold and scammers will often follow up by sending an official-looking letter, confirming receipt of the funds.
“The ingenuity of scammers knows no bounds,” he said. “They work very hard to create a sense of urgency and a sense of fear on the part of the victim in order to sort of shut off people’s critical thinking and (stop them from) asking if this makes sense.”
As an added layer, “they will try to create a sense of secrecy,” telling victims they can’t say anything or to lie about withdrawing large amounts of cash because it could compromise an ongoing investigation, Hinds said.
The reason these cases are so difficult to investigate is because scammers use Voice over Internet Protocol numbers, burner phones or phones in another country, giving police “very sketchy information” to try to identify whoever the victim is talking to, he said. And while police have intercepted and arrested some couriers, there is often not enough proof to charge them as accomplices.
“In talking to some of these couriers, the common claim — and there appears to be an element of truth to this — is that they are being hired on gig work sites or via a friend of a friend or anonymous contact,” Hinds said. “They may not necessarily know what it is they’re picking up.
“We can’t just charge them for knowing that they might have been somehow involved in some sort of scam. We have to prove that they knew exactly what the scam was,” he said.