Sam Amico
A Colorado woman experienced the absolute worst of modern technology, falling for a scam and losing $37,000.
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Diane Peltier then shared her plight with 9News in Denver in an effort to help others avoid a similar fate. The story goes like this, as reported by the news outlet:
Last Wednesday, she was paying bills online when her computer froze and started flashing. A message on the screen said she had been hacked – and she should call Microsoft to unlock the computer.
“It’s bells and sirens and everything,” Peltier said.
A phone number for Microsoft appeared on the screen. So Peltier trusted it and called.
“They’re going to help me,” she said the man on the line told her. “They’re going to take care of me. They’re going to be certain that I’m going to be OK.”
She said before long the call-taker told her to go to a website and click on a link. By then, he had full control of her computer and started showing her bank account claiming they were getting hacked.
After that, the scammer told Peltier that he would connect her with the fraud department. She was soon speaking with a woman who she said went by the name Alison.
Peltier said she then drove the bank, with Alison on the phone, to withdraw her money. She then deposited into a crptocurrency machine, following Alison’s instructions.
It was then that she realized the money was gone. When she tried to call back the numbers, they had been disconnected.
“I should have hung up with everybody,” Peltier told 9News. “I should have unplugged the computer. I wasn’t thinking right. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Petlier isn’t alone in such awful crimes. That same scammer got $99,000 from someone else in Colorado, a official at FBI Denver told 9News.
Per 9News:
The FBI has found more than half of those impacted by this particular scam are over the age of 60. They recommend anyone with a senior in their life share information about this scam and tips on how to prevent it.
“No bank is going to ask you to pay something in gift cards to transfer your money to an overseas account to pay anything in cryptocurrency,” FBI Denver spokesperson Vikki Migoya said. “That is a sure sign that this is a fraud.”
