How a four-word text message led to a Sun City woman losing $309K
“Do you remember me?”
That was the fateful text an 80-year-old woman from Sun City Hilton Head received from an unknown number nearly a year ago, she told police on Friday.
The ensuing conversation would lead the Beaufort County resident to an investment website that later blocked access to $309,000 of her money, according to her statements documented in a sheriff’s office incident report for fraud.
After receiving the short text message in July 2025, she responded to the person — who identified himself as Vincent Rothschild — and the two began having “frequent conversations,” the report says.
They began discussing investments, the woman told police, and Vincent convinced her to check out a specific investing website. After investing small amounts and withdrawing some funds, she got a promotion offer that claimed to double any deposit above a certain threshold, according to the police report.
But the investment platform would later lock her out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in her account, she told police, and she was no longer able to contact Vincent.
The 80-year-old told deputies she did not intend to seek reimbursement through her bank but wanted the incident documented for tax purposes. She was encouraged to report the loss to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, according to the police report.
A spokesperson for the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office could not immediately answer questions about the case on Tuesday — but it appeared to be another instance of investment scammers targeting the wallets of elderly residents.
Investment scams often begin with an unsolicited private message from a fraudster pretending to be an old friend, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The scammer then builds up a relationship with the victim over a period of weeks or months, eventually offering financial advice and steering them toward a phony investment platform. These websites can look legitimate but are often skilled reproductions of real brokerage firms’ webpages, the SEC says.
