NICEVILLE, Fla., March 21, 2019–A Niceville senior citizen allowed a scam caller to download a program on his computer and access his bank information last week.
He’s now hoping he’s not out a substantial sum of money, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.
The 89-year-old victim said someone identifying himself as a representative of Amazon.com began calling him last week claiming the caller needed bank information to renew a subscription.
The victim repeatedly told the caller he did not want the subscription.
Monday, however, the caller talked the Niceville resident into downloading a computer program which gave the caller remote access to the victim’s computer.
The victim was then told to look up his bank information.
That night the victim contacted his bank, believing he was the victim of a scam.
His debit and credit cards were cancelled; however, he learned fraudulent charges for large amounts were pending.
Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office investigators are looking into the case and working to determine if any bogus transactions went through.
The moral of this story: Never give an unsolicited caller access to personal computers or provide them with personal data or financial information.
The official U.S. government public service site has useful information about online safety at www.usa.gov/online-safety.
Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office release
