BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C.–The Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office is warning residents to be extra careful when popups appear on their computer screens.
Deputies say on Monday an elderly resident was scammed by a pop up notice.
“The scammers are very affable and speak like they are in the security field. The number they had the resident call is 315-675-7754 using the name Mark Bishop. They charged the resident $500+ to fix the problem,” the sheriff’s office posted on Facebook. “You have to pay in money cards so there is no getting the money back, ever.”
When the elderly resident questioned the legitimacy of the service, deputies stated that they were put on the phone with a ‘supervisor’. The supervisor then did not like the work done earlier and he claimed that he was going to refund the money, plus a few hundred more. The check would be sent via FED-EX to the victim.
Deputies state, however, that this is merely “Stage 2″ of the scam.
When they FED-EX the check, the victim deposits it and then sends them back the overage amount as the refund check is several hundred more than they spent initially.
?The checks they FED-EX are fraudulent but they won’t know this until the deposited check is kicked back and long after they have sent the money back to the scam artists,” warned BCSO. “Please remind your parents or elderly neighbor that Microsoft is NOT going to contact you via your computer and demand money to fix a problem.”
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