Sheriff Travis Hakes recently let us know about a scam that was stopped in our community.
A resident of Chippewa County was told that their personal information had been breached through an online payment system. They were contacted over the phone by someone who claimed to be from the Federal Trade Commission. The scammers used a method of depositing a large sum of money into the victim’s bank account, requesting that the victim make an immediate withdraw in cash.
Once the victim made the cash withdraw, the scammer wanted the victim to convert the cash into crypto currency, claiming they would be able to identify the people who had “taken” her identity online by “tracking” the crypto currency.
The scammers were pretending to help by depositing a fictitious deposit in the bank larger than the funds requested. Then having the victim get the cash and convert it into crypto currency to be sent to the scammers. Within a short period of time, the bank would realize the deposit was fraudulent, leaving the victim to repay $10,000 to the bank. While here, they told the scammer on the phone they would notify law enforcement, and they attempted to discourage that. Any real situation would want you to verify with law enforcement, it was real.
Sheriff Hakes went on to say that the reason he believes this is important to share with the media, is what the victims said today; they told me, “We’ve seen on the news where you tell the public, if they think it might be a scam, stop in and ask us.” So they did, and they left the Sheriff’s Office to return the $10,000 to the bank.
