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A Personal Warning
A GWEN MORITZ COMMENTARY
people in their 20s are scammed at
A scam victim ignored
higher rates than older Americans.
warnings from her bankers, and What made Boivin vulnerable is
bankers need to understand why.
that she trusted authority figures,
Michelle Singletary, the personal and she believed the people she
finance reporter for The was communicating with were who
Washington Post, has been my girl they said they were. The supposed
crush for years. In December she FBI agent who had been assigned to
made me love her more than ever her case — using a real agent’s descriptive about what a scam
by publishing a series explaining name and a phony case number — could look like, maybe I would have
how sophisticated scammers are talked to her twice a day for wised up sooner.
destroying the financial lives of months, cementing what, to Boivin, “Instead, I felt like I was being
vulnerable Americans. felt like a relationship between judged as a crazy old lady.”
colleagues working toward the
The victim whose experience same noble goal. One lesson for bankers, who
provided Singletary with a wealth of undoubtedly do want to protect
She bought into the law
insight — into both the mechanics their customers from devastating
enforcement scenario so
of a “government impersonation thoroughly that repeated warnings fraud: A scam warning needs to feel
scam” and the psychology of its more personal and less
from Morgan Stanley and the banks
success — is a Maryland retiree professional. It needs to recognize
in which she temporarily parked the
named Judith Boivin. Boivin money could not penetrate. Banker that victims may feel a closer
answered a phone call in after banker tried, but they couldn’t relationship with a scammer than
September 2023 that appeared to with the banker who is desperately
refuse a customer access to her
be from her local police department trying to save them from
own money.
and was quickly persuaded that her themselves.
Social Security number had been Boivin is obviously a victim, and the ___________________________________
used by a Mexican drug cartel. She people who conned her out of her Gwen Moritz is a Contributing Editor
at Arkansas Business Publishing
was asked to help the FBI clear her life savings are obviously to blame, Group. This article was originally
name and stop the bad guys. so it was frustrating to read that she published by Arkansas Business on
persisted in assigning some of the January 20, 2025 and reprinted with
By the end of the year, she would
blame to the very bankers who kept permission from Arkansas Business.
empty her $595,000 Morgan
warning her.
Stanley account, move the money
into smaller accounts at multiple “I never felt that [the banks’]
banks and then methodically hand biggest concern was for my
it over, in cash, to the real bad guys. potential losses, although they
They had walked her step by step to repeated the word scam but
her financial doom. absolutely no context of what that
could look like,” Boivin told
Singletary’s account of the scam is
Singletary. “Rather, they described
heart wrenching. Boivin is now 80, their institutional losses from other
but age didn’t make her vulnerable.
scams and how the individuals
As Singletary pointed out, the
came back to blame them. Had they
Federal Trade Commission says
just been more personal and
Arkansas Community Ban ker | 40 | Winter 2025
