ByKelly Phillips Erb,
Forbes Staff.
It
took Larry Cook and his wife a lifetime of work to save over a million dollars. It took just six months for them to lose it all in a scam, leaving them with an empty bank account, a shocking tax bill, and a baffling increase in their Medicare premiums.
Larry remembers with perfect clarity the day that his life changed. It was September 21, 2023. The retired minister and his wife, Barbara, both now 82, were shopping at the Walmart near their home in China Lake, Maine, when Barb got a call on her cell phone purporting to be from Amazon. Normally, this might raise red flags, but the couple wasn’t initially suspicious. Earlier that month, Barb had trouble shopping on Amazon—a site that she had used for years—and had been trying to resolve an issue with the company. So when the caller said that he was with Amazon and was calling about fraudulent purchases attached to Larry’s name and Social Security number, Barb paid attention.
