Sharon experienced an all too familiar scene. The call warned her of over $10,000 in charges made on her account from several countries and she was asked to “help investigate this” by agreeing to install the app “Open Desk” on her cell phone. The caller told her to withdraw $10,000 from her bank and deposit the money in a special account “to keep the hackers from getting her money.” The criminal told Sharon not to tell the bank “because the hacker might be a person from the bank and this was necessary for them to catch the hackers and break the ring.” A claim was being filed with the FTC and the agency would call her. When the call came on a spoofed phone number displaying “United States Government,” Sharon realized that the whole thing was a fraud and contacted the FTC finding that no claim was filed; she filed one herself.
Here are some takeaways from this incident:
