Woman loses life savings in gold coin scam

After a stellar career as a social worker and mental health program manager for the state of Washington, 73-year-old Barb Putnam, of Olympia, has lost the majority of her life savings through a scam the FBI says is on the rise in western Washington.

The scheme involved Putnam initiating, under duress, transfers of large sums of money from her investment account to her local U.S. Bank branch, then having the bank wire all the money to an online gold coin dealer.

The transactions were highly unusual for Putnam. She’d never even had an online bank account before the scammers got ahold of her. Yet Putnam says at the time, neither her investment advisor, nor her local bank branch put up much of a fuss before making the transfers. And when the financial institutions were alerted the transactions were fraudulently induced, Putnam learned she had no recourse after losing the majority of her life savings.

“[The financial institutions] don’t make it right for you,” Putnam said. “It’s awful. I can only rebuild from here. But who wants to rebuild at 73? And that’s what’s on my plate.”

READ MORE: https://www.king5.com/article/news/investigations/investigators/washington-woman-life-savings-wiped-out-by-gold-coin-scam-investigators/281-5322babd-68c4-4e5d-9610-687e5034d68c

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