NORTH OGDEN, Utah–A lawmaker in Utah is seeking to work with the state’s banks and credit unions to see if more questions could be asked before large wire transfers are sent after his own wife was scammed out of more than $150,000 from the family’s credit union account in a common phone scheme that has targeted consumers across the country.
Machel Andersen, wife of Rep. Kyle Andersen (R-North Ogden), said scammers somehow used knowledge about her personal life to frighten her into cooperating with them. Machel Andersen told KSL.com said she noticed several missed calls claiming to come from the Social Security Administration. When she returned the call she was told her Social Security number had been compromised and that they had found a car at the Texas/Mexico border, with blood in the car, and that her Social Security number had been used to set up multiple bank accounts from a drug cartel.
“Andersen said she was then told she would be transferred over to the Drug Enforcement Agency. The man on the other line identified himself as Uttam Dhillon and that she could look his name up online and see that he worked for the DEA,” KSL.com reported. “She Googled the name and found that name on the DEA website. However, as she would later learn, that’s not who she was talking with.”
The caller instructed Andersen to get into her car, drive to her bank and to transfer everything she could under her Social Security number into her checking account and then to transfer those funds.
‘Family in Danger’
“You need to know that your family is in danger, that this is a very powerful drug cartel, that they’ll be watching you,” Andersen was told.
Eventually, she sent more than $150,000 to the scammers.
“In hindsight, when I look at it cold, I go ‘Why? Why did I ever? How did I not know at this point or at this point?'” Andersen told KSL.com.
Two days later, she said the man called her back, claiming that they would need her to come up with $200,000 in equity from her home for the investigation. “I said, ‘I’m sorry. You’ll have to come and seize the house,'” Andersen responded, according to KSL.com.
Wife Was ‘Terrorized’
Her husband, Rep. Andersen, said his wife was terrorized because the scammer knew information about her activities.
Now, he told KSL.com, he’s working with Utah banks and credit unions to see if more questions could be asked before large wire transfers are sent.
“I think the thing that we were concerned about was that the only question that was really asked of me at the credit union was, ‘What is this money going to be used for?'” Machel Andersen told KSL.com. “And I was told to say that I was buying electronics, and they signed off on it really simply.”
Review of State Laws
Andersen said he is looking into whether any state laws can be changed to require additional questions or require more information be given to customers requesting the transfers about possible scams.
“I’m going to be meeting with the representatives from the credit union and the representatives from the banks to talk just about this, and they know specifically what a lot of these scams are,” he told the news outlet.