03 March Scams

March 16th, 2023 - Fake grandchild scam:
The victim reported that he was contacted on 03/09/23 by somebody claiming to be his grandson. The caller proceeded to tell him that he had been arrested in Georgia after a police chase and needed $15,000 to get an attorney who could help him bail out and fight the charges. He said he spoke with a female who told him her name was Abby (no last name given), as well as a male who
gave the name Nicholas Somberg. Somberg claimed he was a public defender and that he was able to help his grandson. He was instructed to send $15,000 in cash, wrapped in t-shirts, via UPS. The
address he was instructed to send the money to turned out to be a vacant rental property. He provided a tracking # which shows that he requested that the package be returned to him. The tracking # also shows that the package is being held at a "government facility" in Georgia. At the time of this report it is unclear as to whether or not he will get his money back.

March 13th, 2023 - Call from Corporate Work Scam:
The victim stated that she got a phone call at 4:13pm from Speedway Corporate; it appeared on the caller ID. She believed that it was corporate calling and followed the instructions given to her. The caller told her the network was down and advised her to physically close the store, which she did. The caller later had her disconnect the phones and called the victim on her cellphone. She was instructed to place money on various gift cards and from 721pm to 956pm, 15 gift cards were activated for a total of $4095. She provided the caller with all the information from the cards, which means they could be used immediately. The caller had also advised the victim to move the $5's and $10's out of the safe and into the register and was worried that they might have intended to come to the store to rob her.

March 8th, 2023 - Computer being hacked scam:
The victim reported that his computer was locked up and being controlled by someone. He was communicating with someone via phone and he was instructed he needed to send $30,000 to an address in Florida. The victim banks at Wells Fargo and went to two different banks to withdraw the $30,000. He obtained the cash and was instructed to send it to and address is Melbourne Florida. He went to a UPS store and sent the cash to that address on an overnight delivery. After he sent the money he knew he was scammed. He tried calling the local police in Florida however was unable to obtain any help he was looking for. I was able to speak to a Detective from the Broward County Sheriff/Melbourne Police Fraud Task Force about this issue. They were already aware of the address and the type of scam being committed. The detective was able to track the package which was delivered the day prior to this on 3-7-23 at 0930 hours. I gave this detective the victim’s information and he will contact him.

March 7th, 2023 - Don't send deposit via electronic cash apps:
I made contact with the victim and she stated that a female named Melissa Sue listed a donkey for sale on Facebook Market Place for $500. She stated that she responded to the post and was messaging back and forth with Melissa and was told that the donkey was at Birchbury Farms. She stated that she used Venmo to send Melissa a $200 deposit for the donkey on 02/25/2023. She said that after the money was sent, Melissa never responded back to her messages and deleted the posting and her account on Facebook. The victim googled the farm and called the number and spoke with a female. The victim stated she told her that a Melissa did not live or work at the farm and that the farm didn't have any donkeys.

March 5th, 2023 - A twist on the naked photo blackmail scam:
I spoke with the mother of the victim. She reported that around 10:00 AM on 03/05/23 her son began to receive messages on Instagram from the account TAYLOR_alice237. The user claimed that the account user had access to her son’s banking information from Huntington Bank. The suspect sent additional messages to the son on Instagram stating that they would take money from his bank account unless he provided them with pictures of himself. The suspect demanded that these pictures be of him completely undressed. He provided pictures. The suspect then advised the victim that they would share the images with his friends on Instagram unless he provided them with $100. I advised them to discontinue any communication with the suspect. At the time of the report the images had not been disseminated by the suspect and no funds had been exchanged.