WESTLAKE, Ohio — A bank manager for Chase Bank on Detroit Road in Westlake managed to save a couple from being scammed out of $17,000.
Westlake Police said two other residents in two separate incidents were not so lucky.
According to a Westlake Police report, a couple entered Chase Bank and withdrew $17,000 to pay for what they thought was a warrant from the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office. The Branch Manager realized it was out of character for the customer and alerted the police.
"The customer did figure out they were going to be scammed if they took this money out and put it in a buy gift card or put it into a crypto ATM, they were going to lose this money forever," said Captain Jerry Vogel of the Westlake Police Department. "So the clerk there did a really nice job."
In the second case, the victim thought she was calling Microsoft support after clicking the first entry on a Google search, which provided her a number for customer support. Instead, they called the scammer in what is known as "search engine poisoning."
"Maybe it's a Social Security Administration. Maybe it's Microsoft indicating that you have a virus, a terrible virus, on your computer, and you need to jump through these hoops to get rid of the virus," but Captain Vogel stresses these are just scare tactics. "They scare you. For the older population, they may get a little more scared than everyone else."
In this case, the victim was told to withdraw $40,000 to protect her account from being wiped out. The fake Microsoft employee told the victim she had viruses on her computer from child porn from China and an illegal drug website from China. She was told those websites were going to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars unless she withdrew the money.
According to the report, the victim went to a gas station in Westlake, where there was a Bitcoin ATM, and deposited $20,000. A clerk noticed what was happening and tried to warn her, but it was too late. Fortunately, the victim had not deposited the other $20,000.
'If someone's calling you out of the blue, demanding money, threatening you, and it has to do with Bitcoin, it's going to be a scam," said Cyber expert Alex Hamerstone, who added that these scams typically start with a sense of urgency.
"You know, the police don't generally call you and tell you they want to arrest you, right? They come to the door," said Hamerstone. "There are very few absolutes in the world, but 100% the IRS will never take your tax bill. They'll never take your tax payment using gift cards."
In a third incident, Westlake police said a victim put $5,500 into a Bitcoin ATM at Sam's Convenient store after receiving a call from the Social Security Administration.
The owner told News 5 he plans to remove the machine within the next month.
"I just advise you to be very wary of anything that directs you to buy gift cards or put cash into an ATM," said Captain Vogel. Especially the cryptocurrency ATMs, we find that this is almost always, and I could probably even say always, a scam."
