A 51-year-old Troy woman recently lost more than $19,000 in a scam, with the fraudster convincing her to transfer money to stop bogus charges, police said.
According to the Troy Police Department, the fraud started with a text message from a scammer falsely claiming to be from Apple. The woman was initially told a $114 charge was coming and then was tricked into transferring $1,400 through Apple Pay to see if it was a scam; she was next told another scam was in the works and to stop it she had to withdraw $12,600 from her bank and deposit it in a Bitcoin machine — which she did.
The fraudster next lied to her again with a fake claim that another $5,000 was about to be stolen from her account so she had to repeat the process. The woman complied, but subsequently followed up with her bank and was told it was a scam, police said.
Police have repeatedly warned residents to be aware of scams and to check with their financial institutions when unconfirmed sources ask them to transfer funds. As previously reported, police say it’s unlikely such scammers will be caught and prosecuted.
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