A cyber scam resulted in a local woman losing around $4,000 before realizing she was being taken advantage of.

On September 15th, Officers from the Chattooga County Sheriffs Officer received a phone call from a County resident who wanted to report a scam. The female resident stated that when she had opened up her computer a pop up window alerted her that her bank account had been hacked and provided a phone number to call to resolve the issue. Calling the number, the woman spoke with am individual that gave the name of Blake White. This individual told the victim that her Amazon account had been hacked and he could help her to clear it up. The scammer asked the victim for her debit card number, which she gave him as he seemed to already have a lot of her information.

After giving the scammer the card information, the victim was told that the $4,000 she had in her banking account had to be spent and then the scammer could unlock her account. The victim was instructed to withdraw the money and put it on several gift cards, which she did. After this the victim gave the scammer the gift card account numbers and security pin on them.

Shortly after, the victim realized this was potentially a scam and was able to put a stop on two of the gift cards, totaling around $1,000, however the other $3,000 was gone. Officers did advise the victim that cyber crimes are virtually impossible to solve and the victim stated she understood, she just wanted a report to give her bank.