A RETIRED TEACHER IS SCAMMED OUT OF 1.1 MILLION (USD)

Ms. Liao is a retired middle school teacher (now 78 years old) living in Taipei, Taiwan. She has been a devout and kind-hearted Buddhist and a vegetarian for more than 3 decades. Her husband passed away in 2000.  She has used psychiatric and/or neurological medication for many years, and there were incidents that showed her cognitive ability was deteriorating.  Ms. Liao has two children. Her daughter has been living in the United States for many years, and her son went to the United States on 12/12/2021. It was at this point, when she was without family to look after her, that she became the vulnerable target of a professional scammer group.

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The scammers tricked her into believing she was under official government investigation for two death cases, money laundering, and drug dealing.  She lost her identification card in 2021, so she thought someone had used her ID to commit the crime and tried to help the “investigator” to clear the criminal charges under her name.  They forced her to pay a huge sum of the money to carry out the investigation since her two kids were in the US at that time.  She fell 100% into the trap and did whatever they asked her. She told her children nothing about this as the “investigator” threatened that if the private investigation was disclosed, they would stop the investigation and put her in the jail immediately.  

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She lost her entire life savings of 6.6 million (NTD), around 235K USD, by selling all her stocks, emptying her saving account, gold, etc.  A typical senior teacher’s salary is around 50,000 (NTD), 1785 USD, per month, so it’s equivalent to 11 years of income without spending a dime.  Not only that, the scammer group also stole her house, the same house she and her children and her grandchildren had been living in for 40 years over three generations.  They provided the associated black-market lender with a 24% annual interest rate and forced her to take out 12 million (NTD), around 428K USD, loan and put 24 million (NTD), around 857K USD in collateral against the only house she owned and lived in.  The house was everything that her late husband left to her and the children.  These events began in December 2021 and the money was given to the scammer in January 2022.  Her family currently has one criminal case and three pending civil cases going as they try to protect their house.  The total loss for her case is 30.6 million (NTD), around 1.09 million USD, which, for a retired teacher, is equivalent to roughly 51 years of a teacher’s income.  Devastated, crashed, and depressed, Ms. Liao has moved to a temple to live since early this year.  Her son has stopped working and now focuses his time and energy on these legal efforts. Her daughter has been supporting the family financially and emotionally to help with the heavy burden of attorney fees and legal expenses. 

Note: NTD to USD conversion at Jan/2022 was around 28 NTD = 1 USD