62-year-old Jackson man falls victim to scam after searching for "tech support" online

JACKSON Wis. (CBS 58) -- Officers with the Jackson Police Department responded to a home last month after a caller claimed he was scammed by a "tech support" company.

The 62-year-old victim was having computer problems and found a "tech support" company online that he allowed to remote-in to his computer.

The suspect asked the victim to log into his banking account. The victim then watched in horror as his bank accounts were drained to zero.

The scammer then told the victim that if he wanted to see his money again, he would need to purchase $5,000 worth of Walmart gift cards.

The man went to Walmart in West Bend to buy the cards while the scammer stayed on the phone. He was instructed to read the codes and pin numbers which would enable the cards to be cashed.

The scammer then told the victim to get more money, so he drove to the Walmart in Germantown and purchased $1,000 worth of Waknart cards and repeated the process.

Then, the scammer told the man to increase his bank account limit and get more money. He tried doing this but his bank said it couldn't be done until the following morning.

The next morning, the scammer called at 7:00 AM, asking if the man was going to drive to the bank to get more money.

Fortunately, the man picked up his girlfriend on the way to the bank, told her what was going on, and she recognized it as a scam.

The suspect had a foreign accent and called from three different numbers, each from a different area code; however, it was later determined that the Caller ID information had been altered. Luckily, none of the Walmart cards had been used, so the man was able to get the money refunded. He also contacted his bank and discovered that no money had been taken from his accounts. It’s theorized that the scammer had routed the computer to a mock-up of the bank page, where the illusion of his accounts being emptied was then created.

Officer Henning strongly urged the man to get rid of the computer because it was probably compromised, and he could be victimized again.