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Mothers tend to be older than their kids, but my Mom was closing in on 40 when I was born, so she was always a lot older than me.

In the late 1990s, she was 80 years old; already an old lady. But that didn’t mean she was any less tough than she was when she was younger. She could smell BS a mile away, and was never shy about calling someone out.

Still, she was very old, and I was in a constant state of fear that she would fall victim to one of the bad guys. It kept me up at night.

One beautiful Saturday Spring morning, my Mom took her shopping cart, which she leaned on for support, and walked over to her bank. She was planning to deposit a portion of her Social Security check, then cash the remainder, as senior citizens often do.

She was unaware that when she emerged from the bank, my fear would be realized; she would become a statistic, the latest target of a new scam.

It was called the Spanish Lottery. And I had somehow forgotten to warn my Mom about it.

At the time it was a very successful ruse, and it went like this:

A Spanish speaking person would approach an unsuspecting senior who had just exited a bank. The crook would be waving a lottery ticket in front of them.

“Excuse me, Miss, maybe you could help me?” they would begin, in broken English. “I won $50,000 in last night’s lottery, but I am in the country illegally, so…I cannot cash it!”

What a quandary.

“But (here comes the scam part), I’ll sell it to you for $5,000…”

Then the conniver would show their mark the ticket. Sure enough, it would have all the right numbers.

That was because for the ticket they purchased for the Friday drawing, they chose the winning numbers from the previous Tuesday’s drawing. They then simply altered the date on the ticket, and voila! The losing ticket from May 18th now looked like the winning ticket from May 15th.

Worked like a charm on the greedy, and on little old ladies who wanted to leave lots of money to their kids. They would then reenter their bank and withdraw the funds for the ‘winning’ ticket.

Back to my Mom. Like I said, she was old by then, and unfortunately when people get old they often lose their edge (or so I’ve heard). She was, therefore, the ideal victim for the worthless individual who had ‘marked’ her as she approached the bank, and was patiently waiting for her to emerge.

When she got her cash, my Mom smiled at the teller and thanked her for her patience. The teller smiled back.

I always stressed to her that carrying a pocketbook would make her an even more enticing victim (she had already been mugged twice), so she folded her money away in her purse, which she then carefully buried in her jacket pocket.

Mindful of tripping, she then walked carefully towards the exit, her shopping cart in front of her. A man held the door for her, and out she went, into the brilliant sunshine. A glorious day, on upper Broadway, New York City.

She did not get too far before the aforementioned woman made her approach.

“Excuse me, Miss. Could you help me?”

My trusting Mom stopped, looked at her and smiled.

“Yes?” she asked, sweetly.

“ I just won the lottery…”

“Congratulations!” my Mom said abruptly, then stormed north on Broadway to get her food shopping done.