BOCA RATON, Fla. -- It's a daily routine for 80-year-old Inge to drink protein shakes. But a call from last week wasn't routine. She thought it was her phone service provider AT&T.
The man on the other end of the phone asked her to go on her computer. "He had me on the computer doing God knows what for an hour and 20 minutes," she said.
Then the man said there was a problem.
"He says for your trouble, I would like to give you $330. He said punch in 330 which I did," she said. "Well he brought up my checking account and it grew by 3,330. Well he acted like he was getting into tears and he said he was going to lose his job."
The man asked her to buy gift cards as reimbursement. She bought the cards for $2,000 and gave the man the numbers on the cards. The next day he asked her to go back and get more gift cards. But by that time her bank was calling her and so was the bad guy. She says, "He called me 10 times and the 10th time I answered it and said you are nothing but a scammer." Inge now warns her friends.
Rod Davis, CEO and President of the Better Business Bureau of Southeast Florida said, "If they ever ask you to send you things like gift cards or anything like that that's another tip that this is not legit. They use the gift card because once they are gone, it's like cash and there's no tracing back to the individual."
AT&T
https://about.att.com/pages/cyberaware/ar/prepaid-card-scam
Better Business Bureau Southeast Florida and the Caribbean