A financial adviser warns of a phone scam after a client in her 70s tried to withdraw $260,000 after a caller posing as a DOJ official threatened jail time.
TIGARD, Ore. — A local financial adviser is warning the public after one of his clients nearly withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay a scammer who threatened her with jail time.
Nick de Freitas said the client, a woman in her mid-70s, told him she received a phone call from someone claiming she would go to jail if she did not send money by a certain deadline.
The caller reportedly identified themself as a representative of the Department of Justice and told the woman her identity had been stolen and used to commit crimes. The caller said she needed to pay $260,000 in restitution for those crimes to avoid arrest. The caller also told her that if she paid immediately, she might be able to recover the money.
De Freitas refused to withdraw the money from her investments and instead tried to convince her the call was a scam.
“As soon as she came in, I thought, ‘Oh, she believes this is really happening,'” he said.
De Freitas said the woman initially described details of the phone call when she called him, but stopped responding to his questions when she came into his office five days later.
He said the interaction became unusual.
“It was like a rehearsed kind of response. For her, it was not a normal interaction,” de Freitas said.
De Freitas and his business partner even showed the client a scam alert from the Oregon Department of Justice warning about a similar-sounding scheme.
Still, he said she seemed fearful and unconvinced it was a scam.
“It’s really hard when someone believes that their freedom — she was thinking she was going to jail — is on the line, and I’m the one stopping that,” he said.
De Freitas said the woman has refused to take his calls since their last meeting, when he tried to convince her the situation was a scam. He reported the incident and contacted her bank to add a note to her file that can be seen by any future financial adviser.
After the incident, de Freitas sent an email to employees at the firm describing the situation and urging them to stay alert for similar cases.
“If this is happening to her, it’s happening to other people,” he said.
The Oregon Department of Justice said scammers often impersonate law enforcement or government officials and create a sense of urgency and fear to pressure victims into paying quickly.
Officials warn that callers may claim you missed jury duty, failed to respond to a court summons, have a warrant out for your arrest or must pay bail for a loved one.
Legitimate law enforcement agencies will never demand payment over the phone or ask for money through cryptocurrency, Venmo, gift cards or prepaid debit cards, according to authorities.
If you receive a suspicious call, officials recommend hanging up immediately, not sending any money and reporting the incident.
Anyone with questions or concerns about a potential scam can contact the Oregon Department of Justice Consumer Hotline at 1-877-877-9392, or go to https://justice.oregon.gov/consumercomplaints.