My Grandparents Lost $50,000 From an Internet Search

This episode is personal.

My grandparents lost $50,000. They weren't buying gift cards. They weren't responding to strange emails. They simply searched for their bank online because they needed a phone number during a home purchase.

Everything looked legitimate.

What happened next changed my family's life and raised questions I can't stop asking. How can fake bank websites appear so convincing? Why aren't these scams being stopped? Where does the accountability fall when criminals exploit systems millions of us trust every day?

In this episode, I share exactly what happened to my grandparents, what I've learned since, and why I believe every family...especially those with aging parents or grandparents...needs to hear this story.

If this happened to someone you love, or if you've experienced something similar, I want to hear from you. This conversation is just beginning.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You guys, I am so fired up today about this because we are not talking about something that happened across the country to some random person that you've never met. We're talking about something that happened to my family. We're talking about two hardworking people who did everything right and played by the rules, followed the system and everything that they're supposed to do, and still ended up losing tens of thousands of dollars. And the more that I dig into what happened, the more questions I have, and it keeps coming back to why did this happen and how are we allowing this to happen? How are criminals able to get access to people's computers, move money through major financial institutions, impersonate trusted companies, and disappear while everyone involved is left pointing the finger at someone else? My grandfather is in his 80s and he spent in his entire life doing what he's supposed to do, and in a matter of days, $50,000 of his hard-earned money was gone. Welcome back to Melissa Un.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Look, I think it's time to start using your bomb is lit. Everybody watched out because the bomb is lit. I've got that. I got the bomb is fit.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Well, I have to be really honest with you guys about this episode, um, because that is my way of doing things, and I just want to let you know what happened. I actually filmed this episode already, and my producer came to me and said, um, great episode, but we can't use it. I'm protecting you because I said too many names of things, and I don't want to be sued. Just like nobody wants to be sued and everyone's so happy, and a lot of these corporations have deep pockets, and I do not, and that is not my intention here is to have some companies coming after me. It's just to inform you about what's going on because I had no idea this was going on. So this is a re-record of an episode that I filmed, and I really wish you'll be able to put it all together, but I wish we didn't live in a place where you can't say what you need to say, even if it's true, without risk of someone coming after you. So that's where we're at. Um, so I want to talk about my grandparents. They are two of my favorite people. My grandparents played a huge role in my life growing up. I spent so much time with them, and I really view them more as like a second set of parents, um, just because of how much time I've spent with them and how big of a part they have played in my life. And so to see anyone hurt my grandparents just makes me so freaking angry. I'm gonna do everything in my power to make sure that this doesn't happen to other people and that we go after the assholes who did this. Sorry for that, guys, but it's I don't have any other words. It's just sickening what happened to them. It's sickening that this is happening to anyone. And I feel icky that we walk amongst people like this who think it's okay to just steal people's money and just I don't even think they care. Like they sleep well at night. They're just true evil people. So my grandparents live a little over an hour away from my husband and I, and we have been talking to them about moving closer for quite some time. Um, my grandpa unfortunately does have cancer that he's living with, but he's doing really well, and you know, they're just getting older and in old age, things get harder, and driving becomes more challenging to be driving long distances. So we really wanted them closer to us. And uh, my sister, her husband is a realtor, and he was able to help them find a home closer to us. They'll be like 15 minutes away now, which is awesome, and we are so excited about that. But thinking about moving in your 80s, I could definitely see that it is a task and a big challenge, and it's not something that I think anyone should have to do in their 80s. So I really feel bad that they're they're having to do this big move. I know how emotional it's been, and watching them go through this has just been um hard enough as it is. So, um, but we found them, you know, this place, and in the midst of the transaction, we were getting closer to closing day, and um my grandfather said, yeah, we're all good. I mean, I wasn't the one communicating, he was communicating with his lender and his the title company and his realtor. And ultimately it came down to the fact um in the morning, this is what I found out afterwards now, um, that he needed his bank phone number. So he went on his phone and simply looked it up on a search engine. Um, and unfortunately, the search engine he was on, the number that pulled up, it looked exactly like a bank website, exactly like his bank website. It is a very large national bank, like you would know the bank. It's not some small mom and pop bank, but he went on, looked up the phone number, and went on the website, and everything looked so legitimate. I mean, he didn't do anything crazy. We all go on search engines on our phone 24-7 and like look up anything we need. I would say, like, that's a pretty common thing. If you know, I think most of us have a search engine bar just like on our phone screen. He wasn't doing something crazy or talking to some Nigerian prince or wiring money to someone he met on Facebook or buying a bunch of gift cards. I feel horrible for people who fell into the gift card scams. Um, but he literally just searched his bank phone number because he needed to wire money. And that's it. That's what led into this whole crazy thing of him losing $50,000 of him and my grandma's money. Um, something that millions of us do literally every single day. I do this all the time. And knowing that that simple act can cause a huge financial disaster is crazy. And it's not just the scammers, it's, you know, the system is making this possible for them. And again, I'm not gonna point any fingers at anyone here. Um, but you know, just imagine that you've done everything right your whole life. And, you know, my grandma's a social worker. She always is giving back to the poor, they're always involved in their church. They've set up coat drives and I've helped her feed homeless on holidays. I mean, they are just salt of the earth good people. My grandma's a sign language interpreter. Um, felt like that was her calling from God to do that. She has done that for years. She's still to this day in her 80s, goes to her church and interprets for people if she knows that they're deaf in her church, always trying to help them. Just great people. And, you know, I'm thinking like, imagine putting yourself in their shoes, going to the search engine, typing in the name of the bank, and looking it up, calling the number you find. A few days later, 50 grand, gone. Like, I just I don't understand it. You know, everyone made money there except for my grandpa. Scammers made some money. I'm sure what whoever, you know, paid for that site, like they made money. I I don't I don't understand. And this should be something that shouldn't be allowed to happen. I would think that these large national banks have had their websites for a very long time. Like I have a really hard time, you know, I'm not an expert on the internet or how this is created, but like large national banks that have been around forever and the internet's been around a long time. Wouldn't their websites already exist? Like, why is there not a feature that stops a new website pretending to be a bank from creep being created? This isn't like, you know, hi, I own a little bake shop and someone's impersonating me and the internet and search engines like, well, I don't know what's the real one, right? This is a bank. So that I just have a hard time understanding. Um, but you know, these hackers are getting more sophisticated. I mean, they're not just like sitting in dark rooms and, you know, wearing hoodies. They're probably just sitting on their couch doing this from home. Um so nobody in this situation, you know, my grandpa thought that he was talking to the bank. He looked up that phone number and called it and said, Hey, I need to wire money from my account. And whoever was on the other line said, Okay, that's great. Let let us help you. And he's like, Great, like he's doing what he's supposed to be doing. And the person on the other line was a scammer and he didn't know. So here he is giving out his bank information. He's giving out the actual bank account numbers that this money's supposed to go into, and then they're telling him, Oh, uh, you don't have the right type of account, so we have to create a business account. And actually, you can't wire 50,000, so we're gonna have to do two transactions, and he's in his 80s, and he's like, you know, very great, good with technology, I will say. Um, grandpa does a great job, but he, I would have thought the same thing, like, okay, they're telling me I'm talking to my bank, they're saying I can't wire this money. Um, and so it got to the place where like then they had access to his computer because he couldn't figure out how to do this, and that's how they were able to then take even more. But he thought he was wiring money to the right locations, and these criminals are just sitting there waiting for someone to call that number, and it's just so insane to me. I mean, the more people, since I've re-recorded this and had more time to talk, the more people I've told this to, they were like, I have heard of every scam, but I have not heard of that one. Like, usually it's like you get a fraudulent email and it looks like it's from your bank and you open it, and that could be a scammer. But just going on a search engine and looking up your bank phone number, it's scary to me that, or looking up, I'm sorry, the bank website and then clicking the website and getting the phone number from there. It's scary to me that it wasn't like it didn't say ad. You know, sometimes you see ads pop up inside and says ad. You know, we all know don't click those. Um, but I'm I I still just have a hard time. Like these companies know what we search, they know where we go, they know what we buy, they know what we watch, they know who we communicate with. You've got AI learning everything, you've got these machines um feeding the algorithm, you know, these data centers going up everywhere that people are fighting about. Yet somehow a criminal is still able to pretend to be a bank and can get to you in your house and you on your phone or on your computer. I mean, I I need someone in the comments to tell me how this happens because there has to be something in there. Like, I don't want to believe that this is intentional. I really don't. I'm not accusing anyone of anything. This is my show, these are my opinions. Um, it's not an accusation, but I really have a hard time with this because we keep saying that these systems are so sophisticated and they're gonna take over everything, and all these jobs are gonna be gone. And you can't figure out a website is pretending to be a bank and let it go to the top. Come on, it just I don't know. I'm not buying it, I have a hard time with it. It seems like it should be easy. So um the bank, the situation now is you know, the bank tells us, hey, yeah, we monitor everything, we text you, we call you, and they're just saying the money's gone. And there's another bank that's involved because they made them create an account for another bank, and they're also a large national bank, and they're just saying, the money's gone, we can't trace it. Like, have you ever gone into a bank and tried to set up a bank account? It is not an easy thing to do. I swear you're signing your life away. You have to provide multiple forms of identification, you have to provide multiple sources of your address. Um, there's only a list of so many, especially these larger banks. Maybe some of the smaller banks are easier to set up, but these larger banks are crazy. Like, if you sign your check, one time I signed a check the wrong way, like they thought my signature looked off, and they froze funds for I want to say like a week in our account, which was crazy. And I'm like screaming at them, and they're like, excuse me, I'm here. I'm telling you, this is me. It's me. I'm right here, it's my check, my signature, and they stopped the check. I mean, there are so many checks and balances. They have anti-money laundering um checks, they have fraud detection, they have whole departments that they spend millions of dollars on hiring people. Why didn't he get a phone call? Like, why did this large national bank not call him and say, hey, um, you've had this account with us for like 40 plus years or been a customer of ours for 40 plus years, um, we've never seen you wire money. You know, what's going on? Can you tell me more about this? I uh it seems like that should be something that happens. It seems like it would be on a suspicious activity report. Um, but it wasn't. So if a customer, an elderly customer, can wire tens of thousands of dollars to a recipient they've never seen before, also with a weird name, may I add. Okay. I won't say the name because we have an ongoing investigation going on with the FBI right now on this, um, and dealing with, you know, where we're gonna go from here. That's just something that you do, you file a police report, and then it automatically goes to the FBI. They have divisions, we've been in contact with them. But if this can happen to them, like who's watching? We're told all these people are watching, but if nobody's watching, then why are we told all this monitoring exists? Like, if I suddenly walk into my account and withdraw $50,000, don't alarms go off? I thought they did. But apparently, you know, if an elderly person talks to a scammer and they convince them and actually my grandfather didn't even wire them the money. This person took over his computer and did it for him. So he wasn't even the one sending. He's just like, I need help, I don't know what's going on. And they're like, Oh yeah, we're this such and such department, and we help people with this all the time, no problem. Um, you know, I there needs to be some accountability here. I hope that we get some. And again, I can't say who it is because you know, they'll be like, that's not true, we didn't do that. But if you register, someone can register a domain name that sounds legit and copy real content from that website and use search engine optimization for this, you know, why wouldn't the index pages catch this? Why wouldn't the system catch this? It just appeared as normal, it was not an ad.

unknown 14:59

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

So you know, the search engine says, hey, we're not the scammer, we didn't do it. The bank's like, we're not the scammer, we didn't do it. Customer authorized it. We, you know, we don't know where it is. I set up a bank account, gave every piece of ID, but went into another bank account, they don't know who that person is. Politicians are like, yeah, we're working on this. The victim's just sitting there wondering, when am I getting my money back? Again, I I'm still just cycling with this. How can they not trace the money? Even if it turned to Bitcoin or something, there should be a track of which accounts it went into, who opened them, and we should go after those people. According to the FBI, Americans have reported more than 16 billion in losses from internet crimes since 2024, which is a 33% increase from the previous year. Um, nearly 860,000 complaints were filed. And this is just one source of reporting, you guys. I would believe that it's higher. The FTC has reported that consumers have lost more than $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024. And by 2025, they think it'll be $15.9 billion. This is not a little bit of money, you guys. Billions of dollars. And adults over 60 are the ones suffering the greatest losses of any age group. In 2025, Americans over 60 lost approximately 7.7 billion through theft. That is a lot of money, and unfortunately, a lot of those people don't have anyone helping them, you know? This isn't just like a few bad guys anymore. This is a whole industry. Billions of dollars, call centers, scripts, remote access to your computers, fake websites, fake customer service, um, fake fraud departments, fake tech support. Actually, once this all happened and my grandfather realized this was going on, he did the same thing. He hadn't realized how he got in contact with these people yet. And he called what he thought was the fraud department and he was still talking to scammers. Now it's unclear if it was the same scammers or different scammers, um, because this was happening over a couple of days. But these are entire business models being built around stealing money from Americans. And, you know, we're identifying copyrighted music in seconds. I can't post a video or even have like I have a photo that I hang here in the back, and I can't even have it up because it's all copyrighted and it'll be taken down in seconds. You know, we are identifying AI images, but we can't identify fake bank websites and fake customer service phone numbers. I don't know how we're allowing this to happen. You know, it's not just the money to me, it really is like the shame that comes along with this and the embarrassment and the loss of trust for, you know, especially when you're older and you didn't grow up with all of this technology and you're trusting and you have people like me, your granddaughter, saying, Here's your new phone, here's your new device, you can just look up this information right here, and it's so easy and click, click, click, and why won't you listen to me? I mean, my grandpa is someone who during this home transaction was driving every single piece of paperwork to whatever office needed to have it. He would refuse to sign anything online, didn't want to do DocuSign, always brings me papers to burn, has big um, you know, at his old house, he had a lot of land and we would have these big burn parties where we'd burn so much. He's always been so careful. And he trusted what he was taught to trust, and then, you know, he was let down. So a week ago, I thought the biggest threat to my grandparents was their age. I thought, you know, they're getting sicker and older, and we gotta deal with all this stuff, and how can I give them the best life possible? And I never in a million years would have thought that technology would have been their biggest threat. I never would have thought something in their own home where they're supposed to feel safe and where they're supposed to trust that everything's okay, that this could happen. So if people in their 80s can lose 50 grand from doing something as simple as searching on a platform, you know, we should all really be paying attention. If you have a story about this, if this has happened to you or something similar like this has happened to you, please let me know. I want to hear it. This isn't done. I will definitely update you guys on um what the outcomes are. I've reached out to the search engine team, I've reached out to these banks and working on getting as many answers as possible and figuring out what we can do. Because at this point, you know, you know, the money's gone from their bank. Um, but I want to hear from you, and we can't pretend like this isn't happening because that is not gonna fix a damn thing. So thank you guys for listening to this. I really appreciate all your comments and follows. Um, we are over four million views, and it's just incredible the group that we're building here and the network, and all of you, and I so appreciate it. So thanks for tuning in, and I'll talk to you guys next week. Melissa Unfiltered is a Delac Media Group production.