by Alex Lloyd Gross
May 9,2023
When the email came from the “Geek Squad”, the targeted mark in Northampton Township thought there was an issue and responded to it. They received some phone calls from people pretending to be from the computer repair company. Because the mark recently lost a spouse, they thought the email and telephone conversations were real. These co9nversations lasted several hours. In the end, the voice on the other end of the telephone said the only way to resolve an issue was to ship $22,000 in cash to an address in New Jersey. (probably a mail drop).
The targeted mark went to their bank, got the cash and shipped it over. Fraud control at the bank called them and informed the mark that they were scammed and were closing the account and making a new one, to dissuade anyone from accessing it. The mark then contacted the shipping company and had the shipment stopped. Then they went to police, who confirmed the shipment was stopped and was being returned. No arrests have been made.
Another person in the township got their Facebook account hijacked so they could not access it. They then got an email stating their browsing info was tracked and they should set $400.00 in bitcoin. The person went to the police to report it. No money was ever exchanged, and the person knows that it is a scam and will not. Another variation of this scam is for porn sites to be hacked and the scammer will tell the targeted mark they have video of them from their webcam and if bitcoin is not put into their wallet, they will release the video to their address book,