Lethbridge woman defrauded $20k in phone scam

Lethbridge Police are warning about a phone scam after a 79-year-old woman was defrauded out of $20,000.

Police say on January 9, 2024 the victim encountered some ransomeware that locked her computer. A pop-up on her screen instructed her to call a number for Microsoft, which she did, but the person on the line ended up being a fraudster who told her to call the number on the back of her bank card. She hung up her landline from them but did not hang up long enough so the call never actually disconnected – therefore, when she thought she was calling her bank the scammer was still on the line. The person pretended to be an individual from her bank and convinced her to withdraw money and put it into a Bitcoin machine.  

Constable Stephanie Law of Lethbridge Police Service says scammers are getting very sophisticated and are usually several steps ahead of law enforcement.
“They can do a ring tone to make it sound like, oh-yeah I’ve got a dial tone here,” she says.

Cst. Law also says as a best practice, anytime you get a phone call where you’re directed to call someone, hang-up for at least one minute so the call can disconnect (particularly with landlines).
“And if possible”, she adds, “use a different phone to call that number on the back of your card – just so there is no chance of that call not being disconnected.”

She also advises to close those pop-ups.

“Microsoft is not monitoring everybody’s computer all the time so they don’t know when your computer is having a problem,” says Law. “If you think your computer is having a problem don’t call any numbers on pop-ups, take it to a local place where you can hand it to them and don’t deal with anybody over the phone.”

Police say, if you fall victim to a Bitcoin/crypto currency scam, try to retain the Wallet address and Transaction Hash or ID of where you sent the crypto. This helps in tracing the money.