An elderly New Jersey woman who we’ll call Rose for her safety says she was scammed while looking up the winning lottery numbers on her computer and a message like this popped up, in which a supposed cybervirus had entered his computer.
“Maybe I got lucky, I thought to myself as I checked to see if I had won the lottery and it was like the kiss of death.”
Silka González, expert in cybercrime, assures: “it is very common that this type of situation occurs on the increase because there are more attackers from the outside who are looking for victims to extract information and money”.
After the message, the 85-year-old grandmother says, a mobile number popped up which she called.
“They told me they were from Microsoft and someone had hacked into my computer and from there I listened and followed whatever they told me to do, I accidentally gave them access to my computer, they told me not to speak to anyone because it would interfere with the investigation and that they would find those responsible.
And for that, she had to deposit $49,000 at Regions Bank, located at 600 East 9th Street in Hialeah.
The FBI assures that 60% of the victims of this type of scam are people over the age of 60, which is why they advise that if these alerts with phone numbers appear, ignore them, other red flags include grammatical errors, threats and pressure to transfer money quickly like this old woman from New Jersey did.
“The best thing is not to click on any of these advertisements or links”, explains the expert.
“I want people to know that if something pops up on their website and you can’t get out, just turn off your computer, don’t call, don’t follow instructions, turn off the computer, because I heard them and found himself in this nightmare”, says the victim of the scam.
Hialeah Police are continuing this investigation, they have not arrested any suspects yet, while the victim is waiting for his Chase bank to send a letter to the Hialeah area bank to collect his money.