CLAYTON – A Johnston County man lost most of his savings after being tricked by a scammer. In January, the 73 year-old Clayton area resident said he received an email that appeared to be from PayPal.
The bogus email claimed someone had ordered an Apple watch in his name and $320 would be debited from his bank account unless he called a telephone number in the email to dispute the charge.
The victim called the phone number and was convinced to provide the scammer remote access to his home computer for the purpose of crediting his bank account. The fraudster further manipulated the victim into thinking $50,000 had been mistakenly deposited into his bank account during the refund process and the elderly man needed to repay the money with gift cards.
The victim proceeded to withdraw large sums of money from his bank account and used the cash to purchase $26,850 in gift cards. He then providing the card numbers to the scammer.
Several days later, the victim notified authorities. Unfortunately, none of the money could be recovered.
Attention all cashiers – if you see an elderly or cognitively impaired person purchasing huge sums of gift cards, PLEASE inquire as to why and help out our fellow citizens if they are falling victim to these low-life scammers. It’s easy to fall victim when you aren’t used to working on computers and don’t understand all the evil schemes of people How absolutely cruel of those thieves.
I don’t understand how this is still happening, even to “elderly” people. It’s not like the internet was just invented yesterday and we’re all navigating unknown territory. The internet has been a common part of everyday life for over 2 decades at this point. Today’s seniors should be more than well aware of risks and scams. A man gave a stranger access to his banking information, then purchased $20k in gift cards, and thought it was legit? I hate to say it, but there’s no excuse for someone to fall for this.
We are “elderly”.
We unplugged our landline and forwarded the calls from the landline to a cell phone. Unless the number is registered in our contacts list, the call doesn’t ring and is forwarded to voicemail.
If we are expecting a call from someone who is not in our contacts list (trades folks often call from their cell and not the main company number for example) we ask them to leave a voicemail message and we’ll get right back to them.
If no voicemail message is left then whoever called us is not legit.
The criminal scammers do not have a conscience or empathy. Most of this type of scam originates out of India. A lot of US businesses transferred their call centers there, so when we call a legit number for assistance, most of the time we are speaking with someone with the same accent as the criminals. I am sadly not surprised by the number of people who fall for these scams. Everybody needs to be educated enough so they can educate others.
The criminals WILL NOT stop until everybody stops falling for their scams!
Forget Voter ID laws…. *THIS* is how we decide who can vote: if you’re so stupid and gullible to think that any legitimate business will ask for payment in gift cards, then you get what you deserve (and you shouldn’t be allowed to vote!
Wow! @Tell the trulth – Typically, I agree with your viewpoint. However, I respectfully disagree with you on this one. To us this scam may seem obvious, but everyone has different cognitive levels and experience. MOST of this man’s savings ($26,850) was given away. There is so much to think about in that one sentence.
I imagine most folks with large sums of money are savvy enough to outsmart the crooks. But don’t fool yourself – any one of us could fall victim to scammers. Maybe not to this level, but just by clicking on a link that looks legit on our phone messages or emails (Amazon, UPS, Banks, etc.).
It saddens me for this gentleman. This man did not get what he deserved. That is a cruel statement. He must be feeling horrible and I, for one, will NOT make him feel worse with my comments.
Tell the truth, don’t be so harsh to judge people. You never know what could happen to you or your family. It is sad this happens to people. A lot of evil people out there.