When it comes to financial matters, retired Navy Rear Adm. Brian E. Luther is more savvy than many people.
But even Luther — the president and CEO of Navy Mutual — nearly got scammed, exemplifying just how sophisticated financial scammers have become. Since he took the leadership role at Navy Mutual in 2020, his family has been targeted by scammers about every other year.
Navy Mutual regularly warns their military community members about the latest scams as part of their efforts to help military families safeguard their financial futures.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, military consumers reported losing $584 million to fraud in 2024.
“We’re trusting people,” Luther said. “The scammers are trying to find people who are trusting and vulnerable, and they take advantage of them.”
He posted the story about his personal experience with scammers on LinkedIn last year.
“One reason I posted it was so that everybody could learn, ‘Hey, if it could happen to him, it could happen to me,’” Luther said.
Navy Mutual, a congressionally chartered nonprofit veterans service organization formed in 1879, sells life insurance and annuities options, provides financial education and assists with veteran’s benefits.
Luther said the scam that nearly snared him started with a phone call purporting to be from his financial institution. The call was very targeted, with information specific to him and his family, he said.
His wife had driven up to visit some friends in New York, using her credit card for gas. The scammers claimed to be the fraud prevention office from his credit union, concerning a fraudulent charge on a credit card he shares with his wife.
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The scammers escalated his “situation” three times in their chain, each time increasing their sense of urgency. But it became more and more obvious to Luther that the “fraud manager” was not a legitimate credit union employee.
“I let them walk me all the way to, ‘We need to log into your account and change the password. We think you’re in the middle of a hacking evolution,’” Luther said.
At that point, he told them that no financial institution should ask for someone’s password, and he asked for the person’s name.
“Then of course they hung up,” he said. “I called the financial institution to report the behavior of those individuals, and they said, ‘Admiral Luther, we have no record of anyone calling you about your account today.’”
The credit union’s fraud department immediately changed all of his account numbers out of an abundance of caution to make sure the scammers couldn’t get access to his money.
The scammers had spoofed the phone number of his credit union. It’s a common practice for scammers to spoof telephone numbers, email addresses, sender names and web addresses to try to get their victims to believe they’re a trusted source.
Luther advises service members who get a call, text, email or other communication claiming a problem with an account to remember they don’t have to talk to the people asking for information. Instead, they should break the communication and call their financial institution right away, using a number they know is legitimate.
If they did give away some information, then troops should secure all their accounts. Once the scammers get a little information, they can replicate more, Luther said.
Luther said Navy Mutual sees scams in different ways. Generally scammers are trying to shift communications to a different phone number, address or email in order to take over an account. That sets off a fraud alert, Luther said, setting in motion a process to contact the member to validate they want these changes. If not, they are asked to contact Navy Mutual.
With enough personal information, a fraudster can try to create credit accounts in a victim’s name and start spending money.
There are many types of scams in which fraudsters try to hook people through a seemingly innocent text, phone call, email or social media site.
There are online job scams, higher education scams, “you’ve got a package waiting” scams, romance scams, “you owe a fine for a toll” scams — and they’re evolving every day. Scammers are even impersonating local law enforcement.
The FTC lists four general signs of a scam: Scammers pretend to be from an organization you know; they say there’s a problem or a prize; they pressure you to act immediately; or they insist you pay in a specific way, such as cryptocurrency, wiring money through a company, using a payment app or putting money on a gift card.
The FTC also provides detailed information about how to avoid a scam, such as blocking unwanted calls and text messages and refusing to give your information in response to a request you weren’t expecting.
Troops should talk about scams with their fellow service members and their families to help them avoid similar situations, the FTC advises.
The FTC also urges those in the military community to remind older veterans to slow down before responding to unexpected phone calls and emails. People who are lonely might be more vulnerable to scams in which someone is trying to build a relationship that drains the victim’s bank account.
And troops should warn their loved ones — especially before deployments — about scammers that use social media to send urgent messages about fake problems or supposed “once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunities.”
When you’re living paycheck to paycheck and all of the sudden you lose $1,000 on a “get-rich-quick” scam, “that creates financial stress for an individual or a family,” Luther said.
This financial situation could jeopardize a service member’s security clearance, and thus their career. And if you’ve been the victim of identity theft and someone is destroying your credit, it can take a long time to repair your credit score. You could also be vulnerable to extortion or more scams.
Sometimes people don’t even know they’ve been scammed until checking their bank accounts. Scammers send unexpected messages to try to steal your personal information, and then steal your money.
If the scam is so significant that you’ve taken money out of retirement accounts or taken out a loan — now you’ve put your future at risk, depending how much money you gave away, Luther said.
If you do get scammed? Take action to protect yourself from further harm, and report it. The FTC provides information on how to do that.
“Failure isn’t a character trait. It’s an event,” Luther said. “You learn from it. Just because you fell for a scam doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. You cannot underestimate the sophistication of scammers right now.
“This is a persistent threat. It’s a clear and present danger to your financial health, and you need to prepare yourself.”
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book “A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families.” She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.
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