Internet investment with a loss of nearly half a million. A woman from the Znojmo region violated everything the police and common sense warn against. She let a scammer from the Internet into her account and was left with nothing but eyes to cry. Now she hopes the police will correct her mistake.
A fifty-eight-year-old woman arrived at the police station this week with a story straight out of a police warning.
“Two years ago, she opened an account with an investment company she found on the internet. A few days ago, a man called her from an unknown number and told her that the investment company was no longer in business and that she needed to transfer the money she had deposited with them elsewhere. She said she had to open a virtual card, and then they would transfer the money to it,” Lenka Drahokoupilová, spokesperson for the Znojmo police, described the beginning of the case.
The caller was willing to go it alone. He gave her advice and even offered to handle everything for her. Following his instructions, the woman accepted the offer and installed a remote access program on her computer. She then logged into her account, revealing the necessary passwords to the perpetrator watching her actions over the network.
“He then began to manage her account as he saw fit. He stole almost half a million crowns from her current account and set up three loans totaling almost a million crowns,” the spokeswoman said. The total balance is a loss of nearly half a million crowns.
Despite repeated warnings from police officers about similar risks and strong warnings against giving out access data, cybercrime fraudsters are still reaping a harvest.