Internet scam has become rampant today, where con artists utilize every loophole on the internet to loot their victims. Techpression also reported an event where the black axe infiltrates Irish banks and IT firms to commit fraud. Therefore every individual should be on the watch.
Here is and also event where scammers sent an uber to take an older woman to the bank to make her transfer a certain amount of money to them.
Towson, a Maryland-native Travis Hardaway, an app developer who formerly worked as a music educator, according to Hardaway, his mother responded to an email she received from Best Buy/GeekSquad about an appliance installation about a month ago.
According to Hardaway, the fraudulent email could not have come at a more inopportune time: The dishwasher that belonged to his mother had recently stopped working, and she had recently paid to have a brand new one delivered and set up in the home.
In order to ensure that an 80-year-old woman who responded to a well-timed email scam went to the bank and wired the fraudsters the money, email scammers sent an Uber to her home. Her story is a stark reminder of the lengths criminals will go to con their victims, even if she figured out she was being conned before she set out for the bank.
Hardaway, who is the son told KrebsOnSecurity “I think that’s where she got confused because she thought the email was about her dishwasher installation,”
Read: Cybersecurity Experts Discover Fake Windows 11 Upgrades
How It Started
According to Hardaway, his mother dialled the phone number that was provided in the fake BestBuy email and was informed by the scammers that she owed $160 for the installation of the new system. At the time, this information seemed reasonable. After that, the con artists requested that she put remote administration software on her computer so that they could control it from a distance and assist her in completing the transaction by sending the money.
After she logged into her bank and savings accounts with scammers observing her screen, the fraudster on the phone claimed that instead of taking $160 out of her account, they had accidentally transferred $160,000 into her account.
This occurred after she had logged into her bank and savings accounts. They told her they required her assistance to guarantee that the money would be “returned.”
“They took control of her screen and said they had accidentally transferred $160,000 into her account,” Hardaway said. “The person on the phone told her he was going to lose his job over this transfer error, that he didn’t know what to do. So they sent her some information about where to wire the money and asked her to go to the bank. But she told them, ‘I don’t drive,’ and they told her, “No problem, we’re sending an Uber to come to help you to the bank.’”
Mother Escaped Being Scammed
Hardaway stated that he was out of town when all of this transpired and that happily, his mother eventually became frustrated and gave up attempting to help the scammers.
“They told her they were sending an Uber to pick her up and that it was on its way,” Hardaway said. “I don’t know if the Uber ever got there. But my mom went over to the neighbour’s house, and they saw it for what it was — a scam.”
Furthermore, Hardaway said he has now reinstalled the operating system on her computer, reset her passwords, and wiped her hard drive clean. However, he claims that the event has left his mother feeling shaken.
“She’s really second-guessing herself now,” Hardaway said. “She’s not computer-savvy, and just moved down here from Boston during COVID to be near us, but she’s living by herself and feeling isolated and vulnerable, and stuff like this doesn’t help.”
Observations
Every year, millions of elderly people in the United States fall prey to some form of financial fraud or confidence scheme. These scams can take many forms, including those involving romance, lotteries, and sweepstakes, to mention a few. Once they have gained their victims’ confidence, criminals can contact them directly through the internet, the phone, and the mail, or indirectly through the television and radio. Swindlers are inclined to continue a plan after it has shown effectiveness because they stand to make considerable additional financial benefit from doing so.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), elderly people are frequently the focus of criminal activity because of their propensity to be trustworthy and kind. More significantly, they typically have financial savings, own property, and have high credit, all of which make them appealing targets for scammers. Scammers target people with these characteristics because they are easier to take advantage of.
“Additionally, seniors may be less inclined to report fraud because they don’t know how, or they may be too ashamed of having been scammed,” the FBI warned in May. “They might also be concerned that their relatives will lose confidence in their abilities to manage their own financial affairs. And when an elderly victim does report a crime, they may be unable to supply detailed information to investigators.”
In 2021, the Internet Crime Complaint Center of the FBI reported $1.7 billion in losses from more than 92,000 victims over the age of 60. (IC3). Over the next year, the FBI expects a 74% rise in the number of reported thefts.
