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A 77-year-old man from the US lost all of his retirement funds totaling Rs 3.7 crore ($390,000) in just two days after he fell for a phishing scam that started with a fake email. Jeffrey Maas and his wife had plans to travel to Europe and take cruises, but everything fell apart on June 5, 2024, when he got a fraudulent email about a $691 Norton antivirus fee. Worried about this fee, Maas called the help number provided. A scammer pretending to be a PayPal representative named "Jason Green" fooled Maas into filling out an online form, claiming it was for a refund. This started a money fraud scheme that neither his bank nor a local coin dealer could stop. After Maas shared his bank's name and account numbers, the scammer was quickly able to take control of his computer, as reported by Business Insider. Green then told Maas he had mistakenly deposited $300,000 into his account and showed him a fake PNC bank statement as evidence.
Another scammer called to alert him that returning the money incorrectly could lead to penalties from the IRS. They advised that the answer was gold. That same day, Maas visited his usual PNC branch in West Orange and sent $300,000 to American Coin and Stamp Co. in Clifton. He drove to collect the gold himself while he remained on the phone with the scammer the whole time. Upon returning home, he handed over the coins through a car window to a person in a black Nissan. The next day, he returned to PNC and withdrew an additional $90,000 after Green tricked him with a reward form. In a lawsuit Maas filed in Essex County Superior Court against the bank and American Coin, he claimed that bank employees guided him through both transactions without asking any questions about why he was using his savings to buy gold or who he was talking to on the phone during the process.
"The employee did not inquire why Mr. Maas was on a call for the entire interaction or who was on the other line. He did not attempt to determine if Mr. Maas was being improperly influenced," the lawsuit stated. Maas has also filed a lawsuit against a man from Pennsylvania named Jaynesh Patel, who is accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of gold from Maas. Patel has been charged with conspiracy and second-degree theft by deception.
