Think you would never fall for a phone scam? Think again!
One bright, savvy woman is out more than $10,000, conned by a fake PayPal agent.
Leslie Flanigan was one of the victims. She spent several minutes on a phone with a man claiming to be with PayPal, trying to get her to buy gift cards.
"We need two more cards in order to release the money, ma'am," the scammer said.
She said no, but it's too late. Flanigan had already sent him numbers off a stack of Target gift cards she had, believing she had called PayPal.
"It was so official, they said this is PayPal," Flanigan said.
But she had reached a fake PayPal when she googled the company's number. The fake rep told her that her account was hacked.
"There were 24 hackers attached to my PayPal account," Flanigan said the fake agent told her.
To fix the problem, he told her to buy a $500 gift card and she would get the money right back. But then he told her to buy another Target gift card, and another, and then another.
"I betcha I have 18 of them sent there," Flanigan said.
"I was in auto, I was in auto that whole time. I just kept doing it," Flanigan said.
To prevent this from happening to you:
- No store, service or law enforcement agency will ever tell you to buy gift cards to fix a problem.
- Don't trust customer service phone numbers you find online.