A 70-year-old Groveland Township woman has been conned out of nearly $6,000 by professional scam artists.
A Brandon deputy was dispatched to Bank One, 761 S. Ortonville Road, on Aug. 25 for a report of fraud. The woman told him she had been called by a man who claimed to be from the FBI and said she had won a contest for $5,000,000. The man advised her to call the Treasury Department and gave her an 888 number. She was advised to send $2,320 to an address in Canada. She sent the money through Wal-Mart and was later advised to send more money– $3,600. She was then told two FBI agents would deliver her $5,000,000 prize.
The deputy advised the woman she had been a victim of a scam and to not send more money to collect money from a contest she did not enter.
Oakland County Sheriff’s Sgt. Tim McIsaac of the Brandon substation says criminals who do such scams have several layers of protection and hide their identity through various post office boxes. In the six years he has been in Brandon, this is the second successful scam of this kind that he has seen. He typically gets a few inquiries per year however about suspicious phone or email activity.
‘If it sounds too good to be true, it is,? said McIsaac, who notes the elderly are more often targets of these scams.
McIsaac encourages anyone with a concern about a potential phone or email scam to contact the Brandon substation at (248) 627- 4911.