Olmsted County resident loses $16,000 from scam

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – According to the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office, anyone with a cellphone, tablet or computer should always be on the lookout for scams. This recent scam involved someone pretending to be from Think Bank.

This is a scam in which scammers use emails or text messages in order to steal passwords and personal/financial information.

A 66-year-old Olmsted County resident was an unfortunate victim of one of these scams, after receiving a message from her iPad which was allegedly from Microsoft, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The alleged Microsoft message told the woman that her computer was compromised and asked her if they could log into her device. She allowed remote access to the device and received a call from the scammer explaining the computer was compromised.

After this, she says she connected to who she thought was a Think Bank representative who guided her to withdraw $18,000 and then told her to send the money via Bitcoin with the QR code they provided her. She was only able to withdraw $16,900 and proceeded to send them all of it.

After doing this she did not hear anything from the group again.

The Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office explained once money is transferred to Bitcoin it is very difficult to trace where it goes.

Copyright 2023 KTTC. All rights reserved.