BURST
A phone call overheard between his father and a mystery woman on the other end was the first clue Benedict Ma had that his parents might be in trouble.
What had happened between Ma’s father, a retired Richmond resident living with his wife, and a group of strangers over the course of a month left Ma in disbelief — and his parents out of their life savings.
It started off small, with a stranger reaching out to Ma’s father, who doesn’t want to be identified, about a month ago on Line, a social-networking platform popular in Asian countries. His father, a native Mandarin-speaker, was told to join a community group on Facebook to receive free books in Mandarin.
“That was the hook,” Ma said, explaining that his dad is an avid reader.
He joined the group and continued chatting with other members. Ma doesn’t know if his father actually received any free books but he did communicate with them often on Line, always in Mandarin.
Then a message went out to the community on Line: For members only, play a raffle and win hundreds of dollars. The catch was if you earned money, you have to pay half to receive it, Ma said.
Richmond RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Adriana O’Malley told Postmedia the scam also involved an offer to purchase shares in a prominent tech company at a discount.
“He did a bank transfer from his local TD account to a Bank of China account based in Hong Kong and it was about $6,000 the first time,” Ma said. “It just kept escalating from there.”
Ma’s father gave money to the people he thought of as friends for the final time on Nov. 11. It was somewhere in the realm of $30,000 that his father handed over to a man who came to the front door of his home.
His father was happy to see him, finally meeting someone in person he had been connected to only virtually. He even invited him inside, where the two spent some time together for a few minutes before the man left with the rest of Ma’s father’s savings.
Then, the slender, 6-foot Asian man with bleached blond hair and appearing to be in his early- to mid-20s and wearing a medical mask drove off in a green sports car, with a female in the passenger seat.
This is when he thinks his father started to realize he made a grave mistake but still wanted to keep things close to his vest to figure out on his own.
But there were some signs threatening to expose the secret.
Ma recently took his parents on a road trip to Tofino when his father answered a phone call from what sounded to Ma to be a young woman. It was “abnormal,” he said.
“My Chinese isn’t perfect, but I could tell she had a Taiwanese accent, and the way she talked was like a friend talks to an 80-year-old man,” Ma said.
He asked his parents who that was, but they both brushed it off as just a friend.
The peculiar behaviour of Ma’s father came to a head when he called his other son to ask how to take out a personal loan at the bank.
“It was a red flag immediately. Why do you need a loan, what are you trying to buy?” Ma said.
Before going to his sons, Ma’s father had asked his relatives for money, leaving the entire family confused and worried. But because he wouldn’t tell anyone why he needed the money, everyone refused to give it.
Ma’s father couldn’t hide the truth any longer. He confessed that he had lost a total of $42,000 to scammers.
Ma didn’t even know his father had that much money.
“I was just shocked and sad that this had happened to my dad,” Ma said. “We had a very meagre upbringing. Every dollar was washed and cherished because we didn’t have a lot. My entire existence, my dad was very frugal — didn’t go on vacation, doesn’t buy new things, doesn’t buy stocks, doesn’t invest, is very, very conservative financially. And then for me to find out he’s out $42,000 — I don’t even know, I’m in disbelief. Like, who are you?”
Ma’s father had worked as a residential property agent while his mother did administrative work. They lived simply, saved where they could, but Ma would describe his family as lower- to middle-class. His father likely wanted to earn more money but also felt connected to a larger community, one that typically diminishes with age, Ma said.
Due to the international scope of these types of frauds, it can be difficult to get money back, the RCMP said, though “timely reporting can greatly assist investigators in their efforts to intercept and recover funds lost.”
“We advise everyone to be cautious of unsolicited investment opportunities, even if they may appear to be from a legitimate source. Scammers often use social media or messaging apps to target victims and attempt to establish trust. Always verify investment opportunities with a trusted financial adviser or institution.”
“I never thought this would happen to my parents but it happened,” Ma said. “To kids of seniors in the Chinese community, this is happening. Our seniors are getting taken advantage of by these people pretending to be their friends, so I would just watch out. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”