Wow that is even more scary than the call centre thing. Do you have any idea what he was trying to do - this sounds a lot more sinister than the usual cold call method?
I think sadly nowadays it is best to assume everyone is a scammer until proven otherwise.
given it was "money from a gov program" they were offering, they were probably the more... dark... kind of scammer.
I imagine they were aiming for full-on identity theft, by getting her to give social security number, bank details, etc... (seeing as government forms need so much information, it would seem "reasonable" to provide it to them)
Right so maybe cloning the identity to take out loans and things, make false papers etc?
Yup, and, being the little malicious monsters that they are, proceed to scam all her friends and family too if they can.
a friend of mine has the same experience as Leah's parents - the worst part is they got to hack her FB and have asked a few of her friends to send money to that hackers account using her FB tsk tsk
modus operandis like this have no souls
It's scary!