Lori Flowers lost about $600,000 in a pig-butchering scam—$400,000 from retirement savings and $200,000 in personal loans—and received a $225,000 IRS tax bill. She filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy and pays $5,600 monthly toward her debt.
A man who said he was from Brussels contacted Flowers on LinkedIn in 2022. After four months of email and phone conversations, without meeting in person, he asked her to invest in his business. Flowers told USA Today she now thinks he was using AI.
The IRS counted the retirement withdrawal as taxable income and added penalties because she took the money before retirement age. Most of Flowers’ monthly debt payment goes to the IRS; she expects to keep paying for the next few years.
