GARNER – A western Johnston County resident lost a large sum of money in a scam. The 69 year-old victim was in the process of purchasing a rental home for a relative. She received an email from what appeared to be the attorney handling the real estate closing.
The email instructed her to wire the cost of the home, $101,043.96 to them. They provide instructions on how her bank should transfer the money to their account. The woman followed the instructions on the email. Later, she became concerned and found out the real estate attorney had not sent the email. The email address closely resembled her attorney’s. The money had been wired to an unknown account, likely overseas. It is unlikely the money can be recovered.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, scammers know that once you wire money to them, there’s usually no way to get it back. They can pick up the money at many wire transfer company locations and it is nearly impossible to identify who picked up the money or track them down, the FTC says.
If you act quickly enough you can contact your bank and report the fraudulent transaction. Ask the bank if they can reverse the wire transfer and give you your money back. In this case, authorities said the victim did not act quickly enough to reverse the transfer.
Law enforcement is also investigating to see if the scammers hacked into the victim or attorney’s email account before asking for the wire transfer.
Today you have to “put cash in the hands or ur sending it to another land” 😩…maybe all this will give birth to “money insurance”, another way to get people to spend money m🤷♂️😩
At least there are no Apple Gift Cards involved…. I actually feel sorry for the victim.