By SUE SUCHYTA
Sunday Times Newspapers
TAYLOR — File this one under don’t buy gift cards on the urging of a stranger on the phone. A 59-year-old woman was swindled out of $19,500 on Sept. 21 by a trio of con artists who convinced her to pull money out of her bank account, purchase gift cards and provide the code numbers to them.
The con began with a caller, claiming to be from Amazon, asking her if she was available to pick up the iPad and EarPods she ordered at a New York address. When the victim said she had never ordered those items and didn’t live in New York, she was transferred to an ersatz fraud department representative.
Next, she was transferred to a bogus Federal Trade Commission employee, who instructed her to empty her bank account, purchase gift cards from several different stores and then provide him with the code numbers.
After doing what the con artists asked, she called her bank, who told her she had been the victim of a fraud.