Elderly woman loses $20K in cash to scammers

(ABC 6 News) – An elderly woman in Haverhill Township lost $20,000 to scammers who claimed to be with Amazon.

The woman told the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office she got a voicemail late last month about her purchase of an Apple computer from Amazon. The woman hadn’t bought a computer and returned their call.

She was told the money would be refunded to her but she needed to download some software onto her computer. A screen appeared where she entered the cost of the laptop and her refund, $400. The woman told the sheriff’s office the screen then changed and showed $40,000 and she wasn’t able to change it.

The people on the phone with her told her to log into her bank account where she saw $40,000 that had supposedly been deposited by Amazon. She was told to withdraw the money in two different transactions and mail it back to them.

She took out $20,000 in cash and sent it in the mail to an address in Washington.

The woman reported the incident to the sheriff’s office and was told to place the package on hold. She got a notification that the package had been delivered. The address turned out to be an AirBNB and the person the package was addressed to did not exist.

The woman is out $20,000.