Scammers Use Medical Issues To Prey On People’s Good Nature

While there are some mean and nasty people out there, generally people are nice, kind and cordial. We are conditioned from birth to be civil towards each other.

However, those mean and nasty’s seem to pop up all the time and ruin someone’s day.  One scam in particular that has always intrigued me revolves around health issues.

Organ transplant scam – In New Hampshire “a man who almost conned a 73-year-old Maine woman out of $35,000 by claiming he needed a liver transplant has agreed to plead guilty as part of a plea deal he struck with prosecutors. He told her that he would die without the transplant; the scammer also allegedly told police that God told him he needed the operation and he convinced the woman that he was interested in her romantically, and had once stayed over at her home. His alleged plan was to have the woman take out a loan against the equity of her house.”

Cancer scam – In another case “a Michigan woman convicted of scamming thousands of dollars from donors by drugging her 12-year-old son to make him appear to have cancer. The scammer elicited donations from individuals, groups and members of at least one church who believed they were helping to pay for her son’s medical care as he underwent chemotherapy. She is accused of shaving her son’s head and eyebrows. Court records show she told her son he had leukemia.”

These medical scams are generally successful because someone somewhere is going to tap into their good nature and help out. And while I suggest helping out whenever possible, simply beware of medical and disease scams and be careful who you donate to. You can always do some deeper checking with the hospital the person says they are being treated at. This in most cases will stop the scammer on their tracks.

Robert Siciliano personal and home security specialist to Home Security Source discussing home security and identity theft on TBS Movie and a Makeover.