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Is Impact Worldwide a SCAM?

This is not a scam. Asking for a wire to an international address.

  • Mom, who only communicates through e-mail but has a distinctive style and insider information (so I know it's Mom), is traveling in the UK until 4/8/2014. She thought the lost her debit and credit card so she cancelled them. Now she has only her cash which won't get her all the way there. My challenge: figure out (with your help!) the best way to get her some funds so she can enjoy the trip. First, let's get this out of the way: I know this is an ultra-common scam with hacked accounts but I am certain that the person writing to me is my Mom. She's got the right word choice, writing style and information that we've not communicated about on e-mail previously. Please no dire warnings that I/we are getting scammed. Despite this, I would love to have advice on doing this but doing it securely so as not to impact other assets in case the transfer gets compromised somehow. Mom has about 7 - 10 days of comfortable living money on hand. I have durable power of attorney documents for Mom's financial instruments. They're not on file with her banks though, and I know there can be a delay there. My ideal resolution would be to get her AirBnB reservation sorted out on this end with my credit card and get her bank to express her credit and debit cards out to her at her location. If I can't do this, my second priority is to actually wire her money or get her some other financial instrument that's just as good - like a prepaid credit card? But having never done this before, I would appreciate advice on how best to do that at a non-outrageous surcharge. I'd love advice stemming from recent personal experience but even good starting points would do me a good service. No loans will be required by any stretch of the imagination, so it's a problem that boils down to a simple transfer of either cards or money. Thank you very much in advance.

  • Answer:

    Have you considered working through the US embassy? Verification of a US citizen should be right up their alley, and it wouldn't surprise me if they would assist.

kalessin at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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First, verify *on the phone* that it's your mum. Then find out where she is, and get her to a Western Union agent, a lof of newsagents do this.

devnull

if she has enough cash on hand for a week, then her banks should easily be couriering new cards to her hotel (or wherever she's staying) with plenty of time. They should've offered to do that while she was on the phone canceling the cards in the first place, and it strikes me as incredibly odd that they wouldn't have discussed that with her while she already had them on the phone.

Andrhia

Agreed with jetlagaddict, unless she has also lost all her identification, she should be the one communicating with her bank. You should not be involved in any transactional capacity here. If a user forgets their password, would you generate a new one and email it to them in plaintext, or would you send them the link to the official "forgot your password" reset form?

Jairus

Kalessin, people aren't suggesting that the situation between you and your Mom is combative. They are suggesting that it may not be your Mom who is emailing. And until you talk to her directly there will always be that question.

miles1972

EndsOfInvention

I think my primary concern at this point would be Mom's safety. A money scam is one thing, but what if she's communicated the fact that she doesn't carry a phone, doesn't "do" things like embassies, doesn't talk with her family every day, has a non-international bank, and then "lost" her bank cards for a time (as in just long enough to be copied), cancelled the cards and refused replacement cards, and now is going to be limited to what cash she has on hand for the rest of her trip? If that information were to get into the wrong hands - like the hands of someone she's recently befriended - she could be in a jam she's not even aware of. Which is why I'd want to talk to her, regardless of the money situation.

aryma

Western union really is the way to go here. She'll need ID and a passphrase to pick up the cash, and they have locations everywhere. That's pretty much the reason every scammer ever wants you to use western union - it's very easy to do and gets the money there nearly instantly.

zug

OP - Why does your mom have the power to dictate so much of this exchange? Why not wait a few hours and call her at her hotel tonight? Despite your reassurances, this situation doesn't sound, at best, like a clear and even exchange between you and mom. (And if your mom is the kind of drama lama who likes to create emergencies and then keeps upping the ante so that it's all but impossible to solve the problem, don't solve her problem.)

Lesser Shrew

Has she tried simply calling her financial institutions and asking them to express mail new cards to her at her location? I've had to replace lost cards while travelling (in a third-world country even) and it wasn't that complicated. If she's got 7-10 days of cash on hand she should have no problem.

drlith

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