this is so true...unfortunately WU is notorious for these scams and should NEVER be used!

It's too bad there has to be scum bags out there preying on the elderly.

they did not know who was answering the phone, they just got a number from somewhere and called it...IF they did know her..that is even scarier!

I am so sorry to hear this. Your poor Mother these people are really sick.

We are lucky with my 87 year old Mom who is a widow. Even though she lives alone and is still bright and alert and can take care of most of her own banking, etc, one or more of my brothers and I check up on her daily. She gets constant reminders to Just say "No." If she has any questions about anything, the oldest of my younger brothers has power of attorney and helps with them. God Bless your Mom and may this never happen to her, again. :) yes they will pay for their rotten actions as cjmomma wrote.

Yup. My Mom is 82 and has her wits about her, but is hard of hearing. We have empowered her to cut calls off if she doesn't know who it is. And no matter what, never talk business with anyone. All legitimate ones know to contact me regarding her accounts. When in doubt, hang up. It's okay to seem rude when protecting yourself.

I got an email, supposedly from a friend, her email address and everything. She was supposedly stuck in Europe, purse and money, id all stolen, needed money wired to her. Someone hacked into her email address.

My husband was a victim of identy thieft when we applied for a mortage 6 years ago. Thank heaven we have a daughter that works for Choicepoint. She got it all straightened out for him.

I'd call the police.

It's too bad the bank was not more vigilant. Older person + taking out large sum of money should be sending up all kinds of red flags.

I agree, time to have someone be a legal guardian to your mom as far as money matters.

I'm so sorry this happened to your mother. It is scary when these slick thieves succeed; & not knowing what they may know about you.

Consider the senior mailing lists out there, these thieves can get lists of just the elderly; perhaps by saying they are offering Medicare part D insurance, etc. When we moved to our current home 10 years ago, the people who moved out were seniors. Ever since, I get junk mail targeted to seniors, at first generic, but now in our names. We are not yet seniors, but I have been getting a few more scam phone calls recently & I wonder if this is the reason.

Another thing to stop doing is giving to every charity that sends something to you in the mail, or comes to the door...as my mother does. She is now on every mailing & call list imaginable. I tell her just to donate through church, as she is part of the committee who chooses where they will give. If she did this, she could save herself a lot of junk mail & stop some of these phone solicitations!

Hope the police can help you perhaps through your bank or phone records tracking.

that is so awful that there are people in this world that would do things like that I would go straight to the police