An elderly Pennsylvania woman recently lost her life savings to an online scammer, according to state police, in the latest cautionary tale about older adults needing to protect themselves from unscrupulous strangers on the internet.
State police reported this week that the Canton woman, who was not identified, accepted a Facebook friend request last year from someone she did not know. They developed an online relationship in which the stranger eventually asked her for financial help with a business venture, and the victim wired money multiple times in the belief she would get the money back with interest.
She ended up losing more than $78,000 and police are trying to track down the perpetrator and money.
"The victim used her retirement savings account to assist this person," Trooper Thomas Kress told the Washington Observer-Reporter.
"She ran out of money, and they were still demanding money. Then they stopped calling. She then figured it was a scam."
Authorities say swindlers are often able to use age-related information available on the internet to target elderly victims, because they may lack computer sophistication and could be more vulnerable due to decline in mental sharpness.
Diana Biordi, 76, a retired professor of nursing in Harmar, believes she and several neighbors were contacted because of their age in recent months by strangers posing as "Microsoft engineers."
They claimed to be trying to resolve computer problems among those they were contacting and sought personal information, including the log-on name and password for Biordi's bank account so they could "refund" some money to her.
"No way was I putting in my password to let them raid my account," she said. "I am just a little bit gullible - I know that - but not that much. He got more and more angry with me and I just hung up."
Microsoft itself is aware of such attempts and warns about them on its website while advising, "Neither Microsoft nor our partners make unsolicited phone calls to charge you for computer security or software fixes. ... Cybercriminals often use publicly available phone directories, so they might know your name and other personal information when they call you. They might even guess what operating system you're using."
The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office filed a suit in November against a Connecticut-based firm, Click4Support, which it said would send warnings to computer users of potential viruses and would then take control of the personal computers of those who called a phone number for technical help, while also seeking money from them.
Generally, no reputable private firm or government agency contacts individuals cold requesting personal financial information, including account access or numbers.
The Federal Trade Commission's consumer information portal offers tips, scam alerts and links to forms for reporting identity theft, filing complaints, adding phone numbers to the Do Not Call list and more: www.consumer.ftc.gov.
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