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Elderly Spokane woman gets scammed out of her savings

The phone wouldn't stop ringing. A mysterious man called day and night, until he finally got through and gained the trust of Diana's 86-year-old mother in Spokane.

SPOKANE, Wash. — An 86-year-old Spokane woman was recently scammed out of thousands of dollars. Her daughter says her mother lost her husband a year ago and has some cognitive issues. This is a situation that can worry anyone with an elderly parent.

The phone wouldn't stop ringing. A mysterious man called day and night, until he finally got through and gained the trust of Diana's 86-year-old mother in Spokane.

"I am still stunned that my mother would fall for this, but she did,” Diana said.

Diana doesn't want us to reveal her last name, but said just after Labor Day, she noticed her mother had withdrawn $4,000 out of her bank account. When she asked her mother about the money, she wouldn't say why she needed the cash.

Then, the next day Diana got a call from the bank, alerting her that her mother had taken out $10,000 from her safety deposit box, and applied for a loan. It was then the bank and Diana realized what was happening.

"She still wouldn't give us an answer until we were pressing her and pressing her until finally she told us what this many was doing,”

Diana lives on the west side and rushed to Spokane. And when she arrived at her mother's apartment where she lives alone she said her mother was dressed up, waiting for someone.

"She was waiting for somebody to come and take her to dinner and she even made him a cherry pie,” Diana said.

Her mother finally told her about the mystery man on the phone who went by Stanley Hemler.

"She said he had been a pastor and that he prayed with her and he lost his wife a couple months before and so he worked up this whole story with her to gain her trust,”

Over two days this Stanley person had built a rapport with her mother over the phone, he asked her for her savings and in return she would get a million dollars.

"Within two days he had her empty her bank account, empty her safe deposit box, take the cash put it inside magazines, tape it into magazines and take it to Fed Ex and express it off to different people,”

Her mother sent the cash to three different states. She gave this person her home address, her bank and credit card information.

"It makes you furious that someone has preyed on her an elderly person like this and taken advantage of her vulnerability and gullibility. They filed a police report and she took to social media expressing her frustration.

Others came forward saying they have been in similar situations, now she wants to speak out and warn others.

"My biggest fear is he is doing this again to somebody else now he has just moved on to somebody else in the Spokane area right now,”

Diana is taking her mother to live with her the west side.

She says her mother has lost much more than money, she's lost her independence and sense of security.

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