BRENTWOOD, Tenn. (WTVF) — If you got a call or an email from a scammer, would you realize it in time? Before they got your money or personal information?
You’d like to think so. But do you know the warning signs and red flags to look for?
Scammers are coming up with new ways to steal your money all of the time. But many of them use a lot of the same tricks.
The latest scam going around is the Best Buy or Geek Squad scam. And we found someone who recently fell victim who never thought it would happen to her. Now she realizes it can happen to anyone. And she’s sharing her experience so hopefully the same thing doesn’t happen to you.
Eighty-one-year-old Barbara Kraus, who also happens to be my mom, recently got what appeared to be a bill from Best Buy’s Geek Squad for three years of antivirus protection for her computers. She’s a longtime Geek Squad customer, so she didn’t question it.
My mom, though, did not want three years of anti-virus protection. She likes to pay for one year at a time. So, she called the number on the bill.
And that’s how they got her.
Scammers are sending out these fake invoices through the mail and email. In fact, my dad got one too. My mom didn’t notice, though, what should have been a red flag: the unusual way “Geék Sqüad” is written on the invoice.
Soon after she began talking with the woman who answered the phone, the woman told my mom that somehow $4,000 from her bank account had wound up going to Best Buy and they wanted to get it back to her….
