By JAN McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
In a period of four days last week, three senior citizens in Bowling Green lost more than $32,000 to scammers.
And those are just the people who reported the scams to Bowling Green Police Division.
The three incidents involved different scamming methods. One sought payment with gift cards, one with Bitcoin, and one with cash.
BGPD Lt. Ryan Tackett offered some basic tips this morning to avoid falling victim to such scams:
- Always double check the source of messages, such as the URL or web address, “so you can see where the information is coming from.”
- Don’t fall for requests to send someone suspicious payments. “No one requests payments in gift cards,” Tackett said.
- If anyone asks you to stay on the phone with them and not call anyone else, that’s a red flag.
- Ask a lot of questions. “Don’t do anything blindly.”
- For those people who aren’t tech savvy, talk to a trusted source. “Reach out to a family member, friend or neighbor,” Tackett said.
- And if it seems fishy, it probably is.
The BG Police Division is working to schedule a program at the Wood County Senior Center to share more tips on how to avoid scams, Tackett said.
Following are the three incidents reported to police last week in Bowling Green.
Gift cards
On Jan. 24, a 78-year-old woman received a text message that her Apple card had been compromised. The woman looked up the phone number, and it showed as a low percentage likelihood of being a scam. So she called the number, which showed it was from Norman, Oklahoma.
The BG woman was told that someone opened a $12,000 line of credit on her IP address and had already removed $4,500. So the woman allowed the person on the phone to take over her laptop and her cell phone.
She did as the person on the phone instructed, and drove to the Lowe’s in Perrysburg to purchase a $2,000 gift card. She realized she had left her bank card at home, so she drove back to BG – all the time with the scammer on the phone with her.
The woman was then directed to a second store for another $2,000 gift card, and gave the person on the phone the two gift card numbers and PINS. She also purchased a third $2,000 gift card, but at that point realized it might be a scam.
The woman told BG Police that she also bought $2,000 in online gift cards, and those were gone. She also reported that the person on the phone signed her up for a Venmo and possibly a Zelle account.
Police advised her to file a complaint on the Ohio Attorney General’s website, and to check her credit report.
Cash
Also on Jan. 24, BG Police responded to a fraud report from a 60-year-old woman, who said she received an email stating her computer security had expired the prior day. The woman said there was a link from what appeared to be Geek Squad to update her computer’s security.
She received a call from a man calling himself Michael Hardy, about the security measures on her computer. He informed her it would cost $437 to upgrade the security. He advised her to make two payments of $218 and $219. She made the payments, then was told she paid too much and would be sent a refund.
The woman told police that the caller said she was accidentally refunded $20,000, and that she would need to get $20,000 in cash to give a “company person” who would stop by to collect it.
The woman withdrew $20,000 in $100 bills from her bank account, and handed over the cash to the “company person” in front of her apartment.
Then the woman received another call from “Michael Hardy,” telling her she needed to pay $90,000 to repair her computer. She did not pay any more money.
Police notified two local banks that she uses about the incident, and the woman said she would have her computer checked for Malware.
According to the police report, an officer tried to contact “Michael Hardy” with the phone number provided. A male answered and said he was Hardy. The officer asked if he was scamming people out of money, and he reportedly said he was. The man hung up and did not answer any further calls.
Bitcoin
And on Jan. 21, BGPD received a call from a person at the downtown Circle K, who asked that police check on an elderly woman inserting a large amount of cash into a Bitcoin machine.
An officer arrived to find the 85-year-old woman still putting cash into the Bitcoin machine.
The woman told police that Apple had contacted her and said she needed to buy Bitcoin to fix an issue. The officer told her this was likely a scam and asked her to stop feeding the machine. She believed she had already put $8,200 in the machine.
According to the police report, the Bitcoin machine then appeared to automatically shut down after giving the message that the money was deposited into her digital wallet. The officer waited for a paper receipt to be printed out, but it never came.
The woman, who drove to BG from her home in Monclova, told police that her husband had recently died. The officer called her son to let him know his mom appeared to have been scammed.
The woman told police she was at home having her furnace worked on that morning, when she received a call from a male, with a phone number from a local bank. The woman said she spoke with the man for about two hours. He reportedly told her that her bank account had been compromised and someone was trying to take $15,000 from it.
She was instructed to take out the $15,000 in cash from her bank in Waterville, then go to the Bitcoin machine in Bowling Green to deposit the money. The man on the phone walked her through the Bitcoin process.
The woman had created a digital wallet using the caller’s instructions, but had no recollection of the digital wallet number or the transaction ID number. She also thought she had changed the password on her iPhone at the man’s request.
