By: Allen Breed | Associated Press Published: June 23, 2012 Updated: June 23, 2012 - 12:18 PM<\/p>\n
With their elderly parents seated across the octagonal oak table, Donna and Jim Parker were back in the kitchen they knew so well - the hutch along one wall crammed with plates, bells and salt-and-pepper shakers picked up during family trips; at the table's corner, the spindly wooden high chair where a 7-year-old Jim had tearfully confessed to setting a neighbor's woods ablaze. <\/p>\n
It was Christmastime, but this was no holiday gathering. Now, it was the parents who were in deep trouble, and this was an intervention. <\/p>\n
For the past year, Charles and Miriam Parker, both 81, had been in the thrall of an international sweepstakes scam. The retired educators, with a half-dozen college degrees between them, had lost tens of thousands of dollars. <\/p>\n
But money wasn't just leaving the Parker house. Strangely, large sums were now coming in, too. <\/p>\n
Their four children were worried, but had been powerless to open their parents' eyes. Maybe, Donna thought, they'd listen to people with badges. <\/p>\n
And so, joining them at the family table that late-December day in 2005 were Special Agent Joan Fleming of the FBI and David Evers, an investigator from the North Carolina attorney general's telemarketing fraud unit. <\/p>\n
The home was littered with sweepstakes mailers and \"claim\" forms, the cupboards bare of just about everything but canned soup, bread and crackers. Charles Parker acknowledged that he'd lost a lot of money, but expressed confidence that he and his wife would eventually succeed if they just kept \"investing.\" <\/p>\n
Evers and Fleming showed the couple a video of other elderly scam victims, then played a taped interview of a former con man describing how he operated. Charles was alarmed by what he was seeing and hearing, but his wife seemed to be barely paying attention. <\/p>\n
With the couple's permission, Evers installed a \"mooch line\" on the kitchen phone so they could capture incoming calls. The Parkers pledged their cooperation. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
More here: By: Allen Breed | Associated Press Published: June 23, 2012 Updated: June 23, 2012 - 12:18 PM With their elderly parents seated across the octagonal oak table, Donna and Jim Parker were back in the kitchen they knew so well - the hutch along one wall crammed with plates, bells and salt-and-pepper shakers picked up during family trips; at the table's corner, the spindly wooden high chair where a 7-year-old Jim had tearfully confessed to setting a neighbor's woods ablaze. It was Christmastime, but this was no holiday gathering Continue reading
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