‘Elon Musk’ Is Scamming Oklahomans Out of Thousands of Dollars

There is nothing the average Oklahoman dreads more than taking a risk and answering a phone call from an unknown number. 99% of the time, it's some telemarketing scam. But not all scams come from the phone or emails, it's all over social media.

Let this be a solid reminder to check up on your elderly neighbors and family members.

My sweet grandma has grown to the ripe old age of 95. She still lives in the one-horse Oklahoma town where she was born and raised, in the same house she grew up in. As she has advanced in her age, getting out and about has grown more and more difficult.

There is nothing good about growing to be that old. You've outlived your friends and family. You're yearly birthday wish is to let it be your last. You ache all over, and no matter how many doctors you see, they just can't do anything about it. You just fall apart at that age.

She gets very lonely walking around the same 900 square feet day in and day out, but social media has become a place to connect with people. It's as close to going to the country club as it gets at that age, but it comes with wolves in sheep's clothing.

A few months ago, after commenting on the random pages that populate the average Facebook newsfeed, Elon Musk reached out to connect with my grandma. As they started having conversations with more frequency, even more Elon Musk's started befriending her. Five in total.

We can't agree if it's dementia or just the sheer loneliness of living alone in a house for so long, but she is absolutely convinced all of them are the real Elon Musk. She has pictures they've sent her and everything, but her eyes can't see that they're obviously AI-created and stock photos anyone could grab off of Google Images.

It wasn't until a few weeks ago that the red flags started shooting up. On a grocery run to the nearest town with a Walmart, she asked my cousin to grab an Apple/iTunes gift card for a small sum of money.

As it turned out, the richest man in the world was a little cash-poor, so he asked Grandma to foot the bill to buy his son a toy. And when she refused to believe this was a scam, she started mailing checks.

Scammers are good at what they do when they find the right victim. 

I'm not sure how many checks my grandma writes, but she's old school when it comes to money. She has to order a book of checks every 18-24 months or so. She had just ordered checks earlier this year or late last year, and asked my cousin to order her some more just a week or so ago.

The benefit of the doubt was that she probably lost her checkbook, but the story I heard is that she's written out some 400 checks over the last couple of months and mailed them off to Elon Musk.

That side of the family isn't so keen on clear communication, old rivalries and bitter politics, the normal small-life sort of family issues, so I have no idea how much money she's been scammed out of. I've heard anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

The more we try to show her the truth, the harder she fights back. Memaw still has a lot of fight inside herself, and she gets pretty nasty when she gets angry.

Still, Memaw absolutely believes in her heart she's helping Elon Musk.

You can lead a horse to water... 

If you have close elderly neighbors or loved ones, it might be worth checking in on them from time to time. Oklahoma seems to be ground zero for this kind of scam.

I have a distant cousin, 2nd or 3rd, who lived a similar life in a rural town not far from OKC. She was very overweight - 500 lbs - and wheelchair-bound, but she was absolutely convinced she was having a torrid digital affair with OKC Thunder center Steven Adams.

She was always sending him money to help him get his car fixed or to buy him food while on the road. Once even sent him travel money to come visit her, but of course, something came up at the last minute.

There seems to be a point at which someone becomes so isolated that they can no longer think with reason and logic. While you don't have to start a conversation with your neighbor asking about their finances, you can certainly give them a little social time. You never know, it might just keep them from having to move into the old-folks home as a ward of the state.