Posted on 12/23/2017 5:46:52 AM PST by SandRat
GREEN VALLEY — A Green Valley woman who needed computer help lost “well over” $50,000 after she fell victim to a scam, according to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.
The woman told a deputy that she found an Indiana company on the Internet and gave them $100 to fix her computer in late October. On Dec. 9, the company contacted her and said a security update needed to be conducted on her computer and they needed access to it.
While on the phone with the company, the woman said the person on the other end of the phone suddenly exclaimed that there had been an accounting error and the victim actually owed more money to the company.
The caller asked the woman to repay them by purchasing Walmart, Target and iTunes gift cards and providing them the serial numbers. The woman also was asked to send a $2,000 Moneygram to Nepal, open a line of credit, and send cashiers checks to several locations. She did as they asked.
The woman later realized that her line of credit had been tapped out and the company had gotten into her checking and savings accounts and purchased items and withdrawn several thousands of dollars, according to a Sheriff’s Department report.
The company started to tell her that if she didn’t do what she wanted they would “wipe out her account.”
“(The victim) said she did not know what to do. She had been going through hard times herself. She had lost her significant other just recently and she was just vulnerable and they took advantage of her,” the report stated.
On Tuesday, the woman told the deputy she’d received a call from the company asking her to open a $40,000 line of credit Wednesday. It was after some friends told her she’d been victimized that she called the Sheriff’s Department.
All of the victim’s accounts and lines of credit have been shut down by her bank at her request.
Sounds made up. Nobody could be that stupid and have that amount of money / credit available. Maybe she’s scammed herself and perhaps has a gambling problem.
“A fool and their money are soon parted” Oh how true it is.
My elderly brother lost $2400 to this group after he contacted them for help in fixing his computer. They do something called ghost posting to online bank accounts. The investigator with his local police department had never heard of the tactic, nor did his bank.
She needs a caregiver.
Watching CNBC’S “American Greed” TV show.....it’s amazing that people with millions give it to any creep who says he’s got a method to profit.
The con artists will say anything to get their hands on O/P’s money.....reminds me of the conniving Clintons.
They target the vulnerable and I assure you, it is truly a very slick fraud.
The dollar amount appeared in my brother’s online bank account, and seemed to be a legitimate error. The amount did not appear on the bank’s registry. He was sitting with the bank manager talking to the fraudsters while they continued to try to bilk him out of his money with this method.
If you are stupid enough to do what is claimed happened in this case, then perhaps you deserve it?
When I recently took a computer for physical (laptop hinge) repair to a local business establishment, I removed the hard drive first. They didn’t need it for the repair and I didn’t want anybody poking around on the data trying to extract personally identifiable information.
She has to be a mental case who needs a lot of watching.
You would have to be more specific. What you say sounds like a scam for sure, but what exactly are they doing? Manipulating online bank accounts through a virus?
There is no way I’m cutting checks, handing out cash or transfering money to anybody. If the bank made a mistake putting it there, then the bank will eventually be able to fix it without my help.
You can buy a computer for $300 or less.
There are a lot of fraud teasers on Craig’s List.
Recently I emailed to an ad to purchase a dump trailer at a good price. Ended up not being a local listing. Next they claimed the trailer was in an ebay warehouse in Omaha Nebraska. They claimed the price was low as her husband was recently killed in an accident and she needed to get rid of it as it reminded her of the accident.
I called them on it at that point and the scam ended.
Found out that the scam requires the purchase of gift cards to pay.
These are very common.
She calls me 45 minutes after they first got on her computer, saying, “I am starting to get suspicious about what the Microsoft guy was doing.”
No $#!+
When called by one of those companies, I gave them the direct phone number of a Federal Agency and a name of a person for whom to ask. They guy took down the number.
Safe to presume, I think, that amongst the account info they would need to confirm would be the bank account or credit card the payments were coming from.
“”You can buy a computer for $300 or less.””
Yep!
This sounds like the calls I occasionally get from “the Windows Department.”
I sometimes catch a bit of what sounds like Indian or Paki language before they swing into their scam in English.
” What you say sounds like a scam for sure, but what exactly are they doing? Manipulating online bank accounts through a virus?”
I haven’t heard what the detective knows, but he did tell my brother the fraud originated from China.
Apparently, instead of fixing my brother’s computer (he gave them control of it over the phone somehow), actually, they did clean some viruses and other glitches from it only to put their own program into it. The computer ran well for a few days and then glitched again. When he called the “company” back to have them fix it again, they asked him for a payment for services transferred from his bank, online, to their account. He did and that is when the game started. No money of his transferred since it would have had to go through his bank.
The fraudsters inserted a posting on his online account for $2400. Then said it was an error and they could not take it back. Would he get the Itunes cards in $2400 and call back to give them the numbers.
He is elderly and not computer savvy at all. Their spiel sounded very legitimate to him. He isn’t stupid and neither is he greedy. He is very fortunate he called the bank, but afterwards.
They continued to call him even after he told them that he had contacted the police fraud division.
Stories like this make me wonder if people should be required to pass an intelligence test and an exam on basic computer skills before they’re allowed to use the internet.
My wife used to get numerous calls from the “Internal Revenue Department”. You owe back taxes and we are taking you to court tomorrow if you don’t pay right now.
She is a fraud investigator. They hang up quickly when she says that.
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