A cab driver in California is being praised for saving an elderly veteran from a costly scam. When Yellow Cab driver Joel Carstens picked up Bill Miller at his home in Roseville, California, he sensed right away that something was wrong. First, the cab driver saw that the 82-year-old Vietnam vet was carrying several thousand dollars in cash. Then Bill told him he’d been instructed to make a deposit at a bank he’d never been to and alarms went off in Joel’s head.
“So I said, ‘Well, Bill, what are we doing?’” the cabbie recalls. “He said something about Publishers Clearing House, so right there I knew exactly what was going on.” Instead of taking Bill to a bank he’d never been to before, he instead took him to his usual bank. He even walked the vet inside to talk to a teller with him.
Employees in the bank called Joel a hero for paying attention and taking the time to intervene to keep Bill from being scammed. The veterans’ hard-earned money was kept out of the hands of the thieves by a considerate stranger. In retrospect, Bill realizes how close he came to losing his money and has this advice for others, “If it sounds too good, it’s bad.”
Source: CBS Local Sacramento
Photo: Getty Images