In early May, 86-year-old Sandra Jung was on her computer when she suddenly saw a message claiming she had malware. Suspecting it was a scam, she looked up Microsoft’s number to verify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When someone answered her call, they claimed Microsoft owed her a refund, and that\u2019s when the trouble began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey said it was $150, but they had a new product and were going to refund $150,\u201d Jung explained. When she tried to accept the refund, it appeared to credit her account with $15,000 instead of the $150. The man on the phone told her she needed to reverse the excess amount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe just said, \u2018Oh no, this is awful. This is awful,\u2019\u201d Jung recalled. \u201cHe got so upset, saying he was in big trouble now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After some back and forth, the man convinced her to pay back nearly $10,000. Jung felt something was off but trusted the number she had found herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI even said to him, \u2018This seems like a scam,\u2019 but I looked up the number. I called him. So how could this be a scam?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You might wonder how this happened. Cara Carlin from the Better Business Bureau explained that often the first numbers in Google search results for a company are ads and may not be legitimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOften these fake listings are done through advertising,\u201d Carlin said. \u201cWe recommend that consumers scroll past those ads and click on the actual website of the company they\u2019re trying to contact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately for Jung, it was too late. The money she planned to use for her partner’s care was gone. She emphasized the importance of reporting such scams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe most important thing is not to feel embarrassed and not to think you\u2019ve got to keep it to yourself,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s better to have it be known.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jung has filed a report with the Attorney General\u2019s office, but she hasn\u2019t been able to recover her money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In early May, 86-year-old Sandra Jung was on her computer when she suddenly saw a message claiming she had malware. Suspecting it was a scam, she looked up Microsoft’s number to verify. When someone answered her call, they claimed Microsoft owed her a refund, and that\u2019s when the trouble began. \u201cThey said it was $150, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-3882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-refund-scam","tag-scammers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3884,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882\/revisions\/3884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}