A 78-year-old Sun City Hilton Head woman reported to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office that she had received a voicemail from someone purporting to be from Amazon.com in reference to a credit card on her Amazon account being used fraudently.
Then woman called the number provided in the voicemail and was transferred to “the fraud department,” where a man told her she had been a victim of fraud and that he could refund her the money.
During this call, the man told her not to check her account because they wanted her “to stay on the line so they could take care of the issue.”
The man told the woman that he had accidentally refunded her too much money and that she would need to purchase Apple gift cards from Walgreens to “make it right.”
The woman bought four $50 gift cards and called the man back to read him the numbers. The man told her the cards did not work and that she would need to go somewhere else.
The woman then went to Kroger and bought four more $50 gift cards. When she called the man back, he informed her that it was four $500 gift cards that were needed.
The woman then went to Sams Club, where she purchased four $500 gift cards. She provided the numbers to the man before realizing she had been scammed.
