SMITHFIELD – A 69 year-old Johnston County woman lost thousands of dollars in a loan scam.
The victim said she went online to try and obtain a $3,000 personal loan. She located a website that appeared to be a legitimate lending company but unfortunately they were not.
After sending email correspondence to the bogus company, she was instructed to obtain gift cards in exchange for loan approval.
The victim obtained $7,472 in gift cards and provided the card numbers to the scammer. After failing to receive the $3,000 loan, the victim reported the incident to law enforcement.
An estimated 5 million senior adults in the United States fall victim to online scams every year. Many seniors do not report scams, in part, for fear of embarrassment.
So they only needed a 3 grand loan yet had almost 7500 to pay for gift cards….
Can our legislators pass a law that restricts purchasing gift cards over a certain amount until a family member or police even store management has a chance to talk to the person and find out what it going on.
Real good idea. I am 100% for that.
Let me see if I understand…She needed a $3,000 loan, but she had $7,472 to throw away? Okay, I’ll never understand. Be smarter people!
The $7, 472 used to purchase the gift cards were more than likely charged on her credit cards. Leighlah is right about legislation needing to do something about high amounts of gift cards being purchased by people being scammed.
If she had $7,472 available on her credit cards, why wouldn’t she just pay for whatever she needed the $3,000 for, with a credit card?? She would have saved $4,472.
Make it make sense.
Something sounds fishy about this, why would ANYONE spend $7,472.00 when they are in need of money so bad they are looking for a $3,000.00 loan? Someone’s fibbing here.
You’re assuming!! As I commented earlier today, the $7,472 the elderly person used was more than likely to have been charged to her credit cards.
You might want to read the article again, It is not assuming as this article is written.
You said, “…was more than likely…”. YOU, by definition, are assuming.
Instructed to “obtain gift cards in exchange for loan approval.”
This is the reason we need to enable intelligence testing before letting people vote.
If you’re too stupid to hold on to your money, then you’re too stupid to vote.
So someone had something very misfortunate happen to them and you’re calling them stupid and worried about intelligent voting? Oh yeah, I see how one thing has something to do with the other…NOT!
@Tammy: You sound like a woke snowflake… “something very misfortunate happen to them.” This is the problem with all you snowflakes… instead of taking responsibility for your own actions, you complain about something misfortune. It sounds like
you shouldnt vote, either. #BeResponsible
GIFT CARDSSSSSS… PLEASE,, WHEN THEY ASK YOU TO BUY GIFT CARDS,,,, THINK THINK THINK… IT IS A SCAM….
What he said !!
concerned813 – What is wrong with your keyboard?
Click—- I did that on purpose with the capital letters. So many people fall for this type of scam. Maybe this will get their attention like it did yours. LOL…
I think that people need to stop being able to get loans on computers and have to go to the banks and loan companies. We as society have become to accustomed to ordering from home. Don’t get me wrong it’s bad it happened that way to anyone and needs to be stopped because unfortunately computers are here to stay and only going to get worse. But the true way to stop computers money scams is to stop using them for personal business.
@Truck: You sound like a big government, progressive Snowflake, who wants to over-reulate instead of holding people responsible for their actions.
@Tell the truth you are far from it. If you read what I wrote instead of assume what I mentioned. I said something sound be done but no where did I say the government needs to intervine we as are the one’s at fault for relying on computers to much. That’s just like people that wants to blame their criminal activities on other people instead of their own actions. If you are smart enough to operate a computer to do personal business you should be smart enough to determine what’s a scam, so what I’m going to say to you is that we need to police our own action, as far me being a snowflake, as long as you trying to insult me your leaving over Americans a lone, oh yeah by the way the insults will not work because I know I’m a *** ****. I’ve never douted that.
FOOD LION Has a policy when any one comes in trying to purchase gift cards in large amounts or multiple they have to be immediately questioned and explained that they could be being scammed. And if the CSR feels the person is being scammed they can deny the purchase