SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio
Fraud: Talmaga Drive
A man and his wife, both 46, reported Oct. 12 that they were the victims of a scam after receiving a pop-up message on their computer suggesting that it had been infected with a virus.
They called a number that was listed with the message and believed they were speaking with Microsoft’s IT support team.
They were first convinced to purchase $2,000 worth of Target gift cards and provide the redemption codes so that they could protect hackers from withdrawing their money online. After doing so, they were then connected to whom they were told was the CIO for their bank.
That man explained that fraudulent transactions were pending against their account and that they needed to take action to protect their money.
They were told to take money from their bank and convert it into Bitcoin at various Bitcoin machines. They were also given a script of what to say to bank employees if they were questioned about any withdrawals.
The couple went as far as going to a pawn shop to pawn their vehicles so they could immediately get money, since their bank told them that the funds for a home equity loan would take 30 days to receive. The pawn shop told them that federal law prohibited them from such transactions.
The scammers continued to call the couple for days and threatened to refer their case to the FTC, which caused them to panic.
They finally suspected that they had been scammed after they lost contact with everyone they had spoken with. They learned…
