When facing large-scale disasters or tragedies, feelings of despair and helplessness can arise. Many times, when there seems to be no hope, it is necessary to turn to a government agency that was made to help at the worst possible moments – like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the government agency that helps Americans prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters.
The Zweig family lost almost everything in what is now known as “the Palisades fire.” On January 20, 2025, just days after the fire, the Zweig’s headed to the former Westside Pavillion, which was serving as the Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster recovery center to apply for help, only to find out that someone had already filled out a registration online using the husband’s personal identifying information. As in the Zweigs’ case, a fraudster could easily steal personal information, apply first with FEMA and put down their own email address. Wildfire victims who have lost their homes also no longer have a physical mailing address to receive mail or important documents. Then, when the real homeowner tries to apply for assistance, they must go through more hurdles to try to prove that their identity was stolen.
The Zweigs are concerned they won’t qualify for certain services and donations in time because their case still hasn’t been resolved. Loss of hope breeds desperation. Desperation breeds frantic decisions. On February 3rd, the Zweigs got a phone call from someone who identified themselves as a FEMA officer and asked for his bank account information to further verify his identity. “We hope it was legitimately FEMA on the phone,” she said. “We’re still not 100% sure.”
Shout out to the fire, police, and rescue workers in Palisades, California.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “They lost everything in the Palisades fire. Then someone stole one of their identities” published by the Los Angeles Times on February 3, 2025.
Judy Zweig lost almost everything in the Palisades fire: her children’s baby photos, her wedding album and all her expensive jewelry locked in a safe. The 66-year-old dental hygienist planned on spending her retirement years in her Pacific Palisades home, but instead she and her husband will be dipping into their savings to rebuild from the ground up.
“We were so close to having financial freedom and the hope of having a life with so much less stress, and this not only robbed us of our past and our history, but it’s robbing us of the future that we’d dreamed of,” she said. “I’ve never done a ground-up construction project in my life, and I’ll be starting this at [nearly] 70 years old. This isn’t what I wanted to do with my life.”
