Elderly customer almost lost millions in a scam — until a bank employee asked her one simple question

Social media and dating apps have opened up avenues for lonely individuals to meet new people, but they also allow scammers to exploit their emotional vulnerabilities. Recently, an alert bank employee stepped in to save a 70-year-old Australian woman from being robbed as part of a dating scam, according to Good News. The woman sought help to cancel her home insurance as she was planning on selling her house.

But Mariana Karbowski, a bank teller, wasn't convinced by her client's reasons to sell the property and decided to probe the matter further. Karbowski decided to ask some questions and through her investigation, she figured out that the woman was not being completely honest with her. She then invited the woman into her office and asked her about the real reason. It was then that the woman revealed that she needed the money to free her boyfriend from an overseas prison. 

This made the teller more suspicious and she understood that somebody was simply trying to scam the poor woman. "My next question was, please tell me the last time he took you out for a coffee, and she said, 'Actually, never, we met online'," she told Channel 9 News. It didn't take long for her to understand the whole situation as she had gone through something similar when her father was scammed out of millions. Without waiting any longer she did a reverse image search on Google using the picture of the woman's online boyfriend. Upon searching she discovered that the photos that the client received from the man belonged to someone else. "We cried together and I walked her to the police station to report it," Karbowski said. "We care and when we see those red flags, we act."

In another similar incident, an employee of the postal department in Scotland helped an older woman from falling prey to a scam. The scammer had originally contacted the woman and posing as the representative of a bank. The person suggested that she withdraw all her money and send it to an address provided by them. When the woman reached the post office to withdraw her money, she was told by the employee that it was unusual for anybody to ask this of somebody, according to a Facebook post.

The woman quickly told her that it was a scam and asked her to inquire at her bank. At that moment, the scammers called her again, but this time the employee picked up the call, Detailing the incident on Facebook, the post office said, "The bank confirmed that no such call had or would ever have been made demanding money. "According to a press release from the Federal Trade Commission, consumers lost approximately $8.8 billion to online fraud in 2022. People reportedly lost their money primarily to investment scams. The report highlighted the second-highest loss was caused by imposter scams that involve incidents where scammers call, text, or email people because they happen to be individuals in a position of authority.