A 75-year-old Arnold woman lost $4,002 in an alleged scam. The woman lost the money when she purchased gift cards and sent pictures of them to someone who was posing as an employee from her bank, Arnold Police reported.
The woman told police she received a text message on Jan. 10 warning her that her bank account was being charged for purchases at Walmart. She called the number included in the text, and the person who answered claimed to be from U.S. Bank’s fraud department, the report said.
The alleged scammer told the woman her account was being used to buy items at out-of-state stores. She was then told to purchase gift cards from Lowe’s, Cabela’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Walmart and to send pictures of the cards to the number she received in the initial text, according to the report.
The woman was told she needed to buy the cards to empty her account so it could not be used for the out-of-state purchases, the report said.
The woman reported the scam at about 5:45 p.m. Jan. 10, and investigators discovered the phone numbers associated with the texts were no longer working. As of Jan. 19, none of the woman’s money had been recovered, and no suspects had been identified, Detective Lt. Jeremy Christopher said.
He said Arnold Police will forward the report to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.