Colorado woman shares cautionary tale after being targeted by scammers
Tuesday was a rough day for Linda Pierce of Evergreen. It started as it often does in the early days of the month when she tries to get her Colorado bills paid. She went online.
But from there, it was a cascade of trouble and fraud.
"I've kind of broken down a couple of times and I've just been shaking all day," said Pierce.
Her troubles began when her computer locked up and up appeared a screen with directions to "Call Apple Tech Support," along with a phone number. The people she reached were not what she believed, but at the time, seemed helpful, telling her that her account had been hit and she should contact her credit union and tell them it needed to be locked down. She did but is not sure what that meant.
Soon, Linda was told she should withdraw money to buy gift cards that the "tech support" people could use to help her restore the money taken from her account. She was told one of the helpful people was with FICA. Thieves even directed her to an image of a FICA worker online.
"This is his number and everything and call him and that's his extension. I pulled up the face and it showed his face," said Linda.
FICA is the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, the money that's deducted from paychecks to finance Social Security and Medicare. It is not a federal agency. But the helpful man guided her all the way to the credit union to pull out money.
"He says let me know when you get to the credit union, stay in the parking lot and I'll tell you what you have to do. Go into the bank, get $2000 out, and then come back to your car and I'll tell you what else you have to do next," she recalled.
Next was buying gift cards in $500 amounts. After she had purchased four and sent images of them to the scammer, he wanted two more. He instructed her to use her debit card in separate transactions. Then she was instructed to send images of the cards with their numbers to him.
All totalled she was out $3000. She had not considered that she was pulling money from her own account, to supposedly deposit money into her own account. The scammer had kept her confused.
"I think so," said Linda. "He says 'No, no I'm here to help you because there's a lot of them out there trying to scam the older people.'"
When she tried to call again there was a generic voicemail. Then she figured she was scammed, and in disbelief that she could have fallen for it.
"To have somebody come take my money like that, I'm sick, I'm sick. So I don't know what to do," said Linda. Later in the day, her son was home.
"My mother doesn't know computers and gets something and freaks out," said Chris Pierce. " You know it's just sad that people really want to take advantage of a… lady that doesn't have the money."
Linda called both Target and Walmart at the numbers on the back of the cards she bought. They asked her to send receipts and are reviewing her situation.
UPDATE: Linda followed up with her credit union and got a new account. She has also contacted Social Security, which meant hours of waiting on the phone. She needed to file a report with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office so that she could refer to a police report to prove that she was scammed.
"I'm a very persistent person. I keep after it until I get what I want," she said.
That has helped. By calling the number on the back of the cards she bought she did get some help from Target. Of the $2000 in Target cards she bought, Target was able to stop payment on most of it. It will return a little over $1500 dollars to her. Walmart told her it is looking into it and she is waiting for their answer.
