We recently published an article about a case in Switzerland where an 80-year-old man and his wife lost nearly CHF 400,000 to an inheritance scam.
He had been contacted by someone posing as a French lawyer, claiming that a wealthy woman wanted to leave him a large inheritance. The documents and communication appeared convincing, and over time he was asked to make repeated payments for fees and paperwork. The promised inheritance never arrived.
By the time he became suspicious, most of his savings were gone.
Today, the couple lives on their AHV pension of CHF 3,651 per month, leaving them with around CHF 2,000 after rent. They have sold belongings, given up hobbies and are moving to a smaller apartment.
He applied for supplementary benefits, but the authorities rejected the request. The reason: his actions were considered «grossly negligent», meaning he is not entitled to additional support under current law.
Cyber fraud cases like this have increased significantly in Switzerland in recent years, and many cases go unreported.
What do you think?
Should people in such situations receive more support, or is the current legal approach justified?
https://www.beobachter.ch/gesellschaft/wir-werden-ohne-mitgefuhl-brutal-in-die-altersarmut-verdammt-920033
Posted by beobachtermagazin
24 Comments
Any clues as to this man’s name? I’ve got some magic beans that’ll help him recoup his losses.
How do you pay 400‘000 in fees without being suspicious?
This sounds like it was basically the Nigerian prince scam. Yes, there are sympathetic aspects to the case, but “grossly negligent” is a pretty accurate description of sending vast amounts of money to a stranger promising an inheritance (when has that actually ever paid off?). If you choose to light your own money on fire, certainly it is not reasonable to expect to be supported by public money afterwards.
I mean… gg to the scammer I guess, hard to find a “pigeon” like that
How can you be this concious still to make these payments, but not suspect any fraud.
Crazy
If you fall for these type of scams, it is indeed gross negligence.
But I blame more the authorities for not being able to track and retrieve transfers made, when you have bank accounts.
“Wie” ein Tubel
unfortunately I realized due to personal experience with my older relatives, how easy older folks can be fooled. Reasons might be, mental facilities are slower, less red flags / critical thinking possibilities.
Most have big hearts, like to help, and respect “authority”. This combination opens the wallet quite quickly. In above case it seems to be good old greed, what I have is not enough it must be more.
Not sure how we as society can help in these cases. Banks could be suspicious when bigger amount of money flows away especially to foreign accounts? But who would be contacted? If they raise their warnings to this couple they can insist on the transfers. SO unless there are children around that could be alerted, these things are hard to restrict.
Apparently they can still afford shelter and food, and must restrict their hobbies? seems okay so far? Plenty of much younger people have less.
13th AHV was a great wealth redistribution from the wealthy elderly to the Nigerian princes
At this point, the only solution is to prevent people who are suspected of losing their ability to make proper decisions from managing their own money, and give them an allowance (and forbid anyone from getting their 2nd pillar out).
We get warned about these from the government, from the police, from the documentaries, from the newspapers, there’s not much more that can be done in that regard.
It’s not up to the community to finance scammers by reimbursing people who lose their money to them.
The problem with providing more support is that it rewards negligence to spread their losses to the community. I would rather introduce mental fitness or AML filters for old people if they are rapidly withdrawing their pension assets.
Its very hard to have a clear reply for this
On one hand, i feel for the old people falling for this
On the other hand, these actions are fueled by greed; and If the situation would have really been believable, at least ask a lawyer or your banker (which you have when it comes to such amounts)
Is also not very believable that the bank never asked them what they‘re doing – i have a similar case from a friend of mines mother, they started blocking the money when she sent out 40k (in total, not by single payments) and asking whats going on.
I am not a fan of victim blaming, but where does accountability end and victim blaming start?
A dude that drives against a tree while drunk will not get pity from me – and if you are able to transfer money digitally, you are also able to google hoe trustworthy such stuff is
In the end, after writing this outc I dont feel pity for them tbh.
“On January 5th, Kurt Nüssli receives an email, supposedly from a French lawyer. The lawyer writes that one of his clients wishes to bequeath her fortune to Nüssli. This “Madame” is reportedly fed up with corruption in France and is looking for trustworthy individuals in neighbouring countries. She allegedly noticed Nüssli because of his honorary doctorate and admires his social commitment; the inheritance is intended as recognition of his work.”
A guy whose only qualities were that he is Swiss and and he has a doctor title. But that’s not the point. The point is that he believed in that. A lack of modesty combined with greed.
I live in Ticino… CHF 3,651 pension is a dream here…
This post looks suspicious
Anyone with a micron of a brain would have stopped at maybe 5k CHF.
I would not have even paid 100 and would have demanded a personal visit with documents sent to MY lawyer.
This man needs medical treatment for dementia, nobody in their right mind is that senile.
It is a loaded question.
Nobody can remain unmoved by the story and we all feel the injustice and somehow can have empathy for the couple.
That being said, what kind of precedence are we setting? We will support you financially if you got scammed.
That being said, the supplementary benefits are devised to help people in need, the reason why they got into this situation should not influence it too much.
I feel sorry for these people.
Did he also buy a couch for 12k
Ugh awful.
Everyone is sure that they would not be stupid enough to fall for this kind of scam, but they are underestimating the tenacity, intelligence, and experience of these scammers. They are very good. And you or someone you care about will fall victim to them if they are not very careful.
Set up a network of people that you can trust to discuss anything like this with in case it comes so that you get multiple brains looking at any potential scam.
I’ve seen very intelligent people lose vast sums of money to extremely sophisticated scammers – you underestimate them at your peril.
>He applied for supplementary benefits, but the authorities rejected the request. The reason: his actions were considered «grossly negligent», meaning he is not entitled to additional support under current law.
As sad as this story is, and sorry to say: good job to the authorities in Geneva. If people have this much money liquid and want to be this reckless and not have a trustee or financial advisor as a gatekeeper for this scenario, then they can’t expect a handout from the state to bail them out.
CHF 3’600.00 is enough, keeps the future damage smaller.
400K at that age are poor anyway, so nothing changed.
According to a source that is very familiar with that case the bank repeatedly warned them of the fraud. At some point there has to be some accountability and they still aren’t below the poverty threshold.