Per capita, Alaska is the most-scammed state in the country, according to the state’s Department of Law. So far this year, there have been close to a thousand reports of fraud. As CoastAlaska’s Angela Denning reports, some scammers pretend to be local businesses, requiring residents to stay extra-vigilant.
When 73-year-old John Havrilek of Petersburg saw an email from GCI, his internet provider, he read through it carefully. There had been changes to his services recently and he wanted to know what’s next.
“It looked very legit,” he said. “It had the GCI logo on it and everything.”
It told him that in order to continue services to reply with his account and password, which he did. The next thing he knew he had friends contacting him.
“One call after another after another, people that we had in our email list called us and said, did you just email me? And this is from people all over the country, relatives and things like this,” Havrilek said. “And I said, ‘No.’ And they said, ‘Well, we just got an email from you saying, ‘Hi, are you busy and could you email me? Regards John.”
A few friends did respond to the email and they told Havrilek the scammers—pretending to be him–wanted something specific.
“They asked for, ‘Oh, I’m trying to get a $300 Amazon gift…
