It felt surreal to hold millions of dollars of her life’s savings in gold bars and hand them to a stranger in a parking lot, said Shane, a 78-year-old woman from Shoreline, but she thought it was what she “had to do.”
Men posing as government officials told Shane her “account had been hacked.” Over the next five months, they built her trust, providing seemingly official documents to legitimize themselves and convinced her that the only way she could protect her assets from scammers would be to convert her $3 million into gold and hand it to couriers working for the federal reserve.
In the past year alone, people in King County have been scammed out of at least $12 million in fraud schemes, many of them attacking older adults, said King County Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall at a news conference Thursday. Gold bar schemes alone accounted for $4.6 million.
Shane was told to tell no one. Afraid, crying every day and unable to let anyone in on her stress, Shane — who asked not to share her name for privacy concerns — said she was “in hell.”
“I have recently learned that shame for being scammed is not mine,” she said. “And if you've been scammed, it's not yours. It belongs to the scammers.”
In 2025, nearly 5,400 Washingtonians over 65 years old were scammed out of $79 million, said Seattle Federal Bureau of Investigations assistant special agent Jerald Burkin. Gold bar schemes account for nearly $312 million in losses across the U.S.
Courier scams are executed by large organized criminal groups who pressure targets to liquidate all their cash quickly before they can tell anyone, officials representing county, state and federal law enforcement agencies said. These plots often go after a target’s whole life's savings.
Scams targeting older people are becoming increasingly common, officials said. Sometimes they target people who don’t speak English and threaten some with deportation. Other scams involve cryptocurrency, romance and general phishing.
Scammers send emails, text messages and calls to the most vulnerable targets, said King County sheriff’s office crime analyst Jaime Aguileta.
Recent gold bar schemes defrauded a 74-year-old woman of $500 after she was contacted by scammers posing as Walmart security; a 79-year-old woman out of $700,000 when she was contacted by an “Apple employee,” the same as a 69-year-old woman who lost $650,000; and a 93-year-old man out of $475,000 after he clicked on a phishing link, said King County sheriff’s office Detective Sgt. Michael Glasgow.
None of the residents have had their money returned, and some of their cases are still open, Glasgow said.
“ The trauma response to not tell anyone is normal, and the scammers know that. They count on us not to tell anyone,” Shane said. But that’s exactly why she is resolved to share her experience.
Shane remembers flashing colors and huge messages appearing on her computer screen, offering a phone number for the Chase bank and Apple fraud centers, though they really led to scammers.
The men on the other lines were “friendly” as they convinced her they were helping, Shane said. Contacting her on various and changing phone numbers, and even a computer they told her to purchase, the scammers told her to buy Lowe’s gift cards after unsuccessfully trying to get her to buy bitcoin. Then they asked for the card numbers, telling her next to liquidate everything.
They told her to convert her money into gold. She contacted legitimate gold dealers and purchased bars of the precious metal before boxing them up, sending photos to the men of each step along the way.
Then, in a Verizon parking lot, she handed the bars to who she believed to be couriers so her gold could be safely stored in the Federal Reserve. The men sent her what looked like credible receipts saying her gold was making money and that it would soon be returned to her.
Along the way, the banks and gold bar dealers asked Shane if she was being scammed and even tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t listen, she said, “totally caught up in the ‘kindness’ of the two men and the position they had over me.”
At one point, one of the men called and told Shane she did not need to liquidate any more, that the case was done.
Overwhelmed with different emotions, Shane asked, “You mean I can tell someone? and even, “You mean, I don't get to talk to you anymore?”
The man told her “Yes,” and an “amazingly good feeling” washed over her until she told someone about the whole ordeal 10 minutes later. Then they told her to call the police.
Scammers like these often operate in international networks, with many of the leaders positioned overseas while couriers are based in the U.S., which makes prosecuting the scammers themselves a challenge, said assistant U.S. Attorney and elder fraud coordinator Lauren Watts Staniar, “but it's not insurmountable at all.”
And though she lost 95% of her assets, Shane said she will still have to pay taxes owed to the IRS for liquidating her assets. That, she said, she can’t even begin to deal with mentally right now.
“I have and continue to experience immense grief, remorse, anger, sadness and especially fear about a very different future than I had dreamed of or planned for,” she said.
Law enforcement provides numerous tips on how to avoid scams and financial crimes.
* Government agencies will never call or text to collect fines or ask someone to pay in gift cards.
* Never share passwords.
* Be wary of requests for money or personal information, and unusual payment methods.
* Don’t respond to messages or calls from people you don’t know.
* Trust your gut. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
If you or someone you know has been targeted by scammers, don’t be embarrassed, officials say. Report it to local police, the Federal Trade Commission or the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. Keep receipts, records and messages and notify your financial providers.
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