Last week, I got an email from a woman I had only met once, here in the neighborhood. It asked: "Do you buy from Amazon?"
Sensing a scam, I reluctantly replied "yes I do."
I immediately got another email saying that she was having trouble buying a gift card from Amazon.....they didn't want to take her credit card. She then asked if I would buy a $300 gift card from Amazon and give it to her, and she would pay me.
My answer was "NO, I won't do that!" and then I suggested she could go to her bank and buy a Visa gift card, if she needed one that badly. Of course, I got no response from that. I am sure they were disappointed that this old lady did not "bite" on their request.
I later found out that a friend's father was "cleaned out" of a lot of money by responding to this type of email. Let that be a lesson to us all.
Soon after that, I heard about someone whose savings account was cleaned out of a sizable amount of money, by scammers. He got a call purporting to be from his bank, saying they needed info for something (I'm not sure what). They asked for his birth date, and since he had no idea what knowing that could mean, he gave it out. Apparently, they had gotten hold of his debit card number (we think it was at a gas station) , and that info, added to his birth date, was all they needed to gain access to his banking information. Yikes!!
Learn these lessons....do not respond with sensitive information to any call or email that you did not originate.
3 comments:
it is scary how often there have been attempted scams... Once, in my former church, someone almost got the church's treasurer to send "me" money, when it wasn't me asking for it.
I live in fear of the day my mind will fall for one of these scams. For now I am diligent in staying away and recognizing what is coming but what if I suddenly fall victim to something? My sister had a friend who was so lonely she talked to every caller and ended up penniless. I am grateful for our friendship Judy and am wishing you and yours a happy holiday season.
Before I retired, part of my job was providing Western Union Services. I can’t tell you how many times we refused a transaction because it was an obvious scam. The grandchild who needs bail money, the guy who is coming from a far off islandto marry you and needs plane fare. And all the gift card scams. Unfortunately most of them probably went elsewhere and sent it anyway.
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