COLORADO SPRINGS — Someone claiming to be from the fraud department of your home internet provider calls you out of the blue to tell you someone is visiting x-rated websites in your name, but they claim they can clean things up if you just send them money through a money transfer app.
This is the situation that caught Diana Sanchez off-guard. It's an experience she wants us all to learn from.
”The phone rang and it came in and it said Xfinity. So, I thought I better answer this it must be important for them to be calling,” said Sanchez.
The man on the line claiming to be from the fraud department told Sanchez someone was visiting x-rated websites in her name. She says he then used video chat through her phone to show her some disturbing images.
”He was showing me all of this ugliness," said Sanchez. "I’m thinking oh my God we can’t have this on our modems. We’ve got to get this taken care of. So, I’m following along with him because I’m scared.”
To try to add legitimacy to his call, Sanchez says the caller went on to give her a series of names and phone numbers and claim numbers. She wrote down entire pages of notes.
”He says give them this reference number. So, it all sounds real,” said Sanchez.
Eventually, the caller told Sanchez he needed payment and told her what to do.
”I need you to go to your Cash App. So I did. I went to my Cash App. He said ok, we are going to do a few tests,” said Sanchez.
The caller then took her through the process of setting up several payments, taking $1,300 from her before she finally said enough and hung up to ask for help.
”After I called the police you were the first person I called after that because I said I’ve got to let other people know,” said Sanchez.
News5 told her to immediately contact her bank and the money transfer app she used to send the money to help defend against any potential identity theft as a result of this call.
She’s hopeful she’ll be able to get most if not all of her money back, but it’s been a difficult process. It's one she doesn’t want to see anyone else go through.
”I don’t want them to get caught up in what I have gotten caught up in because I’m still to this day working with the companies trying to get everything taken care of,” said Sanchez.
If you ever get a call from a company you do business with that doesn’t seem right, you can always hang up and call them back from the phone number printed on your latest bill. That way you know who you’re calling actually works for the company.
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