A 77-year-old woman lost $ 12,000 in an ingenious Bitcoin scam

A 77-year-old woman in the US city of Chesterton, Indiana, received an email in June informing her that her PayPal account had been compromised.

The email said that nearly $ 500 had been withdrawn from her account and she had to call a specific attached phone number to fix the problem.

She called the required number and on the other end was a man with a foreign accent instructing her to buy $ 3,500 in Bitcoin on the Coinbase exchange.

The man then offered to guide her personally by accessing her smartphone using screen sharing technology. He also asked if he could check the account to help her get back the money lost on PayPal.

She agreed to all of the man’s requests and even provided him with a photo of her ID.

Eventually, she found that after six withdrawals, a total of $ 8,800 had disappeared from her account. Together with the $ 3,500 used to purchase Bitcoin, it lost over $ 12,000.

Such scams often happen, and the victims are often the elderly. Many victims were embarrassed to report the incident to law enforcement agencies.

Chesterton Police Department Sgt.Dave Virijevich said:

“It seems that beyond a certain age, too many people are susceptible to this type of scam. These types of criminals take advantage of people’s friendliness. They hunt for their trustworthy nature. “

“My guess is that this woman had never heard of Bitcoin until she was asked to buy this untraceable, untraceable currency. The criminals who commit this crime are from countries that will not be extradited, which means they will likely never be caught. “

Scammers, often from other countries, use special caller ID (caller ID) apps that make their phone number look like the phone number of a legitimate organization.

“It’s really not from the US Treasury Department or the IRS, but it looks like it. Many older people don’t even know these apps exist. They don’t think long about its legitimacy, “added Virijevich.

For example, the phone number used for this scam has a 202 area code, which could suggest it was from Washington, DC

“But the victims claim that it is legal and that they must do what they are asked to do. You are concerned about an arrest warrant or possible fraud. They were afraid that the US police chiefs would come to arrest them. Pity”.

“It is sad to say that these criminals are very good psychological manipulators. They dial the phone numbers of thousands of people at random. If just one of the few people there got trapped, they were very successful. And if the scammers live somewhere higher in dollar value, this woman losing $ 12,000 here could be about $ 30,000 to $ 40,000 there. “

This woman eventually got her $ 2,000 back from the bank. Since then, she has closed the affected account, bought a new mobile phone and notified the authorities of the incident.

Mr. Teacher

According to Newsweek

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