They Pretended to Be Social Security, and the Courier Had Already Arrived to Collect the Money: How a 78-Year-Old Was Scammed
One sentence the victim’s daughter cannot forget is the one her mother said after she had already realized she had fallen victim to a scam and called the family. She told her husband, "Why are they calling me so many times? I already gave them everything." In her mind, the people on the line were still National Insurance Institute representatives. Only the family understood that on the other end of the phone were not public employees, but fraudsters who managed to gain her trust and take all the gold and silver jewelry she had, along with cash.
It happened on May 19, around 10:30 in the morning. Her mother, 78, received a phone call from a woman who introduced herself as a National Insurance Institute employee. She spoke pleasantly, sounded convincing, and said she was calling to add hours for a caregiver. "My mother told her, 'Speak to my daughter, she handles that,'" the daughter said. When she arrived later that morning, something already did not feel right. "I told her no one had called me, and that the National Insurance Institute does not add hours over the phone. I went to the seniors office to check whether such a request really existed. They checked the computer and told me unequivocally that there had been no inquiry, and that no one had contacted her."
From that moment, a race against time began. She tried to call back the number they had used, but the line was no longer available. By chance, that same day her phone was broken, so she called her mother from her husband’s phone. "For twenty minutes she was constantly busy. I could not understand why."
At the same time, she opened the security cameras to see what was happening in the house. "I wanted to understand whether she was really speaking with someone. Then my husband called me and said, 'Come quickly to your mother. She was scammed. They took money from her.'" In hindsight, she learned that her husband had managed to reach the mother while she still believed she was speaking with family members. "She told him, 'Why are you calling me a hundred times? I already gave you everything you wanted.' He answered, 'We did not ask you for anything.' At that moment she understood she had been deceived."
According to the daughter, while her mother was kept on the line, the person speaking to her instructed her to take all the money and jewelry out of the house. At the same time, a courier was already waiting below the building. "I was shocked. How did he even get in? It is a building with an entrance code. He waited for her downstairs, spoke to her in Hebrew, and she was sure he was Israeli. She even told him, 'Wait a minute, I am not ready yet and I do not have a box,' and he just stood there and waited."
What appears afterward on the cameras, she says, she cannot get out of her head. "He went inside, closed the door behind him, and told her, 'Come on, quickly, give it to me.' She tried to arrange the things, even closed the box with a bandage, and he closed it quickly and ran off."
The envelope contained NIS 11,000 in cash, dollars, euros, three gold necklaces, and gold rings. But for the daughter, the amount is not the main story. "When I saw the cameras, I was not afraid for the money. I was afraid for my mother. He is a large man. I saw how he closed the door behind him and I thought to myself what would have happened if he had decided to push her or hurt her. She was a hero, she got through it and was not physically injured," the daughter said.
Even after the courier disappeared, the family’s story was not over. "Within seven minutes from the moment she understood she had fallen for a scam, it was all over. She went downstairs, saw three men, and asked them if they had seen who had just left. They told her they did not know and saw nothing."
Since then, she said, her mother has not been the same woman. "She is 78, and she is simply depressed. She thinks about what happened all day. It is weighing on her constantly. It is not just the money that was taken from her, it is the feeling that they deceived her and exploited her trust."
According to her, just a week later she had already learned of another similar case of an elderly woman who had been scammed. "It just does not stop. Every time it is another person, another family."
In the case, a suspect was arrested on suspicion of receiving something under false pretenses and criminal trespass, but was later released by the court to six days of house arrest and no indictment has yet been filed against him. A review by Walla shows that the suspect has an entirely different version. In his interrogation, according to sources in his environment, he acknowledged that he came to the location to collect a package, but denied any connection to the scam. "I make my living from National Insurance. I looked for a job as a courier on Yad2 and they sent me to pick up a package. I am not connected to this," he told investigators.
He also rejected the suspicions regarding the money found in his hands. "It is money that belongs to me. The package from that woman was handed over to the person who ordered it," he said. When asked exactly to whom he had handed over the package, he replied that he did not remember, and added that, according to him, the details should appear on the mobile phone where the delivery request was received. He claims the phone was taken by the police and has not been returned to him to this day.
Even now, after the arrest, the elderly woman’s daughter is left with one question that refuses to let go. "They caught the suspect, they saw the gold and everything, so why do not they return it? He was released to house arrest. I am not a court, but I will say one thing, if you caught the man with her belongings, how did you not come to return them? Why does she have to keep waiting?" she said. "Since the incident she has not been the same person."
Police clarify that at this stage the elderly woman’s jewelry has not been located, and only cash has been seized. The investigation is still ongoing, and if it becomes clear that the seized money belongs to the victim, it will be returned to her in accordance with the law. At the same time, investigators continue to collect evidence, locate additional victims, and examine other suspects who may be involved in the case.
At the end of the interview, she asks to convey one message, especially to the families of Russian-speaking elderly people. "People need to understand how sophisticated they are. They call in their language, speak nicely, build trust, do not raise their voices, and do not sound like criminals. My mother is also a smart woman. She even understood fairly quickly that she had been scammed, but by then it was too late. Their cunning is simply unimaginable, and the victims are left with the scar long after the money is gone."
It seems everyone has already heard about this scam. It has already made headlines, led to arrests, and ended with more than one family that simply wanted to understand how it happened to them. And yet the phone keeps ringing, someone keeps introducing themselves as an official representative, and another elderly man or woman is convinced they are doing the right thing. Perhaps that is precisely the reminder that the method succeeds not because the victims are naive, but because the scammers know very well how to make anyone believe them.
