ROANOKE (WSLS 10) – The caller identified himself as a New York City Police officer, claiming her deceased husband’s lifelong best friend needed help. Apparently he had gotten himself a DUI and needed to be bailed out. She quickly went to a local pharmacy and wired $1,870 because, “no one else in the world could know they had been friends for all these years- it had to be real.”Unfortunately someone else did know: her personal computer.Months after becoming the victim of a computer repair scam, one Roanoke woman has now been the victim of an imposter scam. It appears scammers lifted information from her computer’s email history and contact list during the first scam, and then used it to convince her to send the bail money. BBB is warning consumers that scammers will often return to victims, hoping to strike again.“Criminals love to return to the scene of the crime if they believe they can steal even more money or information,” said Julie Wheeler, President and CEO of BBB Serving Western VA, in a written statement, released on Friday. “The computer repair scam is especially dangerous as it exposes a variety of personal information that can be used in future scam attempts.”Often con artists will target the elderly using a variation on the scam often called the
Source: ALERT: Computer repair scam & impostor scam linked | WSLS