MARYSVILLE, Wash. — A Marysville woman is sharing her story to warn others after scammers stole $13,500 from her last year.
“Every morning, I wake up and think, ‘Oh, how could I have done that?’” she said.
The woman asked not to be identified because she was ashamed that it happened to her.
She’s not alone. The Federal Trade Commission reports consumers lost more than $10 billion to fraud in 2023, a 14% increase over reported losses in 2022.
In this woman’s case, it started as an email claiming to be from Best Buy’s Geek Squad. It wasn’t.
The scammers behind the message claimed they were automatically renewing a subscription she wasn’t aware she’d signed up for.
When she called to cancel, she went to her internet browser to search for what she believed was the correct number. It wasn’t.
The person on the other end of the call convinced her to share her bank account information and then claimed they had issued a refund. But he said the refund accidentally was sent for $14,000 instead of $140. She’d need to send the extra money back, he said.
“He’s saying, ‘How far away is your bank? You need to go to your bank?’” she said.
The man said that was the only way she could send the money and that she could not write a check. At the bank, he told her not to speak to anyone or tell them what was happening.
Despite alarm bells ringing in her head, the man was convincing.
At various points during the call, he threatened her with lawyers and told her he might lose his job if she didn’t correct the mistake.
“They know how to get to you,” she said.
The scammer ultimately made her convert the cash to Bitcoin. It wasn’t until the next day, when she checked her account balance, that she realized they had never sent her the money as promised.
Scams have proliferated consumers in recent years.
“It is so easy,” said cybersecurity expert Dave Henderson, CEO of CyberStreams. “It’s almost impossible to track, and you get the money immediately.”
He said the money consumers lose is often impossible to recover.
“Whether you hand somebody $100 in cash and they walk away, or you transfer it as Bitcoin, or you get a gift card or you do a wire transfer,” he said. “When you initiate that, you have been defrauded.”
He urges consumers to filter unknown messages using the SLAM Method:
Sender: Look at the sender emailing you. It’s often familiar, but not exactly who they claim to be.
Link: Don’t click on any links
Attachment: Avoid opening attachments
Message: Make sure it makes sense
Examine the sender’s address to ensure it’s from the person or entity it’s claiming to be. Scammers often use addresses similar, but not identical, to the address they’re pretending to use.
Don’t open links or attachments from people you don’t know.
Check the body of the message carefully to look for red flags too. Spam messages may contain misspellings or weird phrases that don’t make sense.
When in doubt, just hang up the phone or delete the email.
“They know the things to say to make you do what they want you to do,” she said.
The woman hopes by sharing her story, others avoid falling for similar scams.
Her message to the people responsible?
“You just took money from an old lady who’s retired and is just trying to live her life,” she said. “Why would you do that?”
Imposter scams were the most common among scams reported to the FTC in 2023, followed by online shopping scams, and fake prizes and sweepstakes.
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