A NEBRASKA woman has lost $25,000 after she received a pop-up on her computer that led her to transfer money through Bitcoin.
A 54-year-old woman from Lancaster County, Nebraska told police that she had opened her work computer and clicked on a Microsoft security pop-up.
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The pop-up brought her to what she thought was a credit union fraud department where she was told to make a phone call, according to local CBS affiliate KOLN.
On the phone, she was told that Russians had hacked her bank account and attempted to take more than $27,000.
To protect her account, the person on the phone told her to transfer $25,000 into Bitcoin cryptocurrency, which she did.
During the transaction, she stayed on the phone with the “fraud department” and also received a call from someone impersonating Sheriff Terry Wagner.
The person pretending to be Wagner gave her a fake case number for the attempted theft from her bank account.
This is the second scam of this nature Lancaster County has seen in a week, Lancaster County Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said according to the outlet.
Another person in Denton, Nebraska lost $8,000 and was told to contact her bank and Bitcoin to see if she could get her money back, but it was gone.
“As we have learned through a lot of these, the money is gone,” Houchin said.
“This one was a major loss for her.”
Houchin encourages people caught in these situations to hand up and call their bank or the police immediately.
MASSIVE LOSSES
In 2023, 2.6 million people reported fraud and $10 billion were lost, according to the Federal Trade Commission’s new 2023 Consumer report.
Imposters took the number one fraud spot while phone calls and emails, social media, and emails led to big losses.
Last year, phone calls had the highest per-person reported losses with $1,480 being the median loss.
Social media scams had the highest overall reported losses and managed to steal $1.4 billion.
Scams from emails had the highest number of reports with 358,000 reports in 2023.
Top tips on avoiding scams from a bank
As scams become more sophisticated with the use of artificial intelligence, it is important you know how to spot a scam and how to avoid them.
- Be skeptical of online deals that seem too good to be true, especially on social media.
- Scammers will often use tactics to make you panicked so you make quick decisions – be cautious if you are told to take immediate action and verify who has contacted you.
- Chase Bank warns customers to “never return any unexpected funds without calling Chase first.”
- Never send money to someone you have only spoken to online or by phone as this is likely a romance scam.
- Unless you 100% know who you are talking to, never give someone remote access to your device.
- Never accept help from strangers at an ATM and always be vigilant when making withdrawals.
- Do not send money or click any links indicating that you have won a prize.
Source: Chase.com
The U.S. Sun has previously reported on money loss due to scams including a woman who lost $15,000 in 30 minutes.
Carole Lemay ran to her bank after receiving a call from a scammer pretending to be an Amazon Prime worker in September 2022, per CTV News.
Lemay, 75, said she suspected the call was a fake because she wasn’t a prime member.
But when she went to her bank, they gave her a new card and PIN telling her that all her money was there.
However, she later learned she had $15,000 stolen in two different transactions.
Lemay returned to the bank but was told the payment couldn’t be stopped.
Bank of Montreal launched a probe but seemed to blame the customer as she was accused of not protecting her details.
However, Lemay said her password was obscure and vowed she would never share it.
She revealed that she is no longer a BMO customer.
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