WILLOW SPRING – A Johnston County senior citizen says she was recently scammed. According to a report, the victim was on her home computer June 16 and received an email. The email appeared to be from a software security company. It stated the subscription to the security software on her personal computer had expired. She was instructed to call a phone number in the email.
The victim phoned the number and was told, after the virus software on her computer had expired, someone had hacked into her PayPal account.
The scammers convinced the victim she needed to pay $350 for new software, and to allow them remote access to her computer to fixed the alleged problem.
The scammers then told the woman they were going to refund the $350 to her bank account. Later, they claimed they had mistakenly deposited $3,500 into her account instead of $350 and requested she repay the difference. Continuing to trick the victim, she sent the scammers payments totaling $7,000. Only later did the victim realized she had been defrauded.
The crime was reported to law enforcment. The investigation into the incident is ongoing. It is unlikely the money can be recovered.
To everybody reading this…..Please have a conversation with everybody you know, especially older folks. Tell them to never trust phone calls or texts, numbers are easily spoofed to look like they’re from trusted sources. And to NEVER, EVER, trust any email they may receive. The scammers are incredibly good at what they do, they do it all day, every day. Make yourself available to answer any questions they have regarding this.
The scammers WILL NOT stop until everybody stops falling for their scams.
Thank you for saying what you said. Now if you could just get them to listen.