Portsmouth Woman Scammed out of $25,000 – You Could Be the Next Target!

A Portsmouth woman contacted police to report she’d been scammed out of $25,000. She said she was contacted by someone she thought was a friend who lived in Peebles, who told her about a program that would allow her to receive $250,000 if she put some money into it. The woman sent close to $25,000 in gift cards and cash to Florida and Arizona to an organization called World Financial Empowerment. The woman showed messages to officers from someone claiming to be an agent of the company who promised her a large cash return. She eventually realized the whole thing was a scam. This type of scam is one reason crooks often try to clone Facebook accounts and pretend to be your friends. They will often send you links to check out or suggestions for ‘programs’ to help you out. This is why crooks pretend to be 57-year-old grandmas online, and they convince you that they are a trusted friend. Most of these operations are operated overseas. Unfortunately, the company the woman believed she was dealing with doesn’t exist and local officers aren’t able to do much when a scam is operated overseas. PPD put her in touch with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. Another woman lost more than $5,000 after scammers claiming to be from Microsoft tricked her into giving them access to her computer. The scammers then accessed the woman’s bank accounts, PayPal account, Best Buy, and Amazon accounts and took money from her. The woman closed those accounts and changed her passwords. Officers took information for a report, but as with the first case, there’s not much they can do. Keep in mind that companies like Microsoft will never call you. Not long after that, another woman said she’d been contacted by a scammer who said there was a problem with her Apple account and asked her to verify by giving her name, driver’s license, date of birth, and last four digits of her Social Security information. They told her she’d need to log onto her bank account so they could take care of the problem. The crook removed over $3,000 from the woman’s account. Officers took a report and advised the woman to notify Apple, dispute all of the banking transactions, and check her credit report for more charges.

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