“Tech Support” Elder Scam Thwarted by Bank Employee

March 28, 2024
/ News and Events Senior Scams
/ By seotech

Another older adult almost fell victim to an elder scam, this time prevented by a vigilant bank professional.

In this case, the 67-year-old male victim was having technical issues with his computer. When he contacted tech support, he was advised that there was suspicious activity on his bank account. Tech support requested $32,500 in cash to correct the problem. The victim went to his bank to withdraw the funds and was informed by a bank representative that he was being scammed. The police were called, leading to the arrest of two men.

Says Ken Kern, head of Cona Elder Law’s Senior Scams and Financial Fraud Department, “While your typical ‘tech support’ scam usually involves a ‘representative’ reaching out to seniors for the purpose of convincing the targeted victim that their computer has been comprised by hackers and offering to fix it for an exorbitant sum of money, this recent scam took things a bit further.”

“Here, the would-be scammers set up a website, likely masked as an existing well-known brand, in order to lure in their unsuspecting victims. As such, even when navigating to what appears to be the website of an established brand, one must carefully review the domain name or website address for any irregularities.”

“Understand, that it is incredibly easy and cheap for scammers to purchase these web addresses containing the name of a well-known and trusted brand, with a slight permutation of the actual business’ domain name (Ex. www.bestbuyit.com).”

In these harrowing times, we all must be vigilant, especially our senior population, when conducting any transaction on the internet or risk finding ourselves at the center of a cautionary tale.