Pop-ups are a pain, right?
They gum up the works and slow down your computer. And it seems like they always appear to distract you just when you’re doing something extremely important.
But for a 74-year-old Indiana woman, a computer pop-up was more than an annoyance. It set her on the path to nearly losing her life savings.
According to reporting by Indianapolis Fox 59, the scam started while the woman was surfing the web. A pop-up appeared warning that her identity had been stolen.
And that’s when the woman made her first mistake.
She called the phone number listed on the pop-up.
My advice to you – don’t do that.
Ever.
I’m certain that you will never be contacted via a computer pop-up by anyone who has your best interests at heart.
The people behind this pop-up certainly didn’t care about her identity. They were interested in her money.
And she had a lot of it.
When the victim called the number on the pop-up, she spoke with someone who claimed to be a Charles Schwab investigator. He said thieves had hijacked her identity and stole $5 million from her account.
Let me reemphasize something here: Charles Schwab is not using pop-ups to contact its clients.
Unfortunately, our victim believed this was all on the up-and-up.
Here’s another tip from me to you. If somebody says money was stolen from your account, you can check if the money is still there. Account balances are always available online. And if you aren’t computer savvy, make a phone call. Don’t just take the pop-up dude’s word for it!
In fact, it’s always a good idea to directly contact any company or government agency that sends you an unsolicited link to click or a phone number to call. If "Charles Schwab" sends you a pop-up, go to the company website, find their number, and call it to verify.
Apparently, this never occurred to our victim, and the scammer convinced her to transfer millions of dollars to a Bank of America account and then to a Wells Fargo account. After that, the scammers instructed her to purchase gold.
I’ll give the thieves some credit here. They understood that if they just had the woman transfer money to their accounts, authorities could trace it. They understood that millions in cash would be hard to transport and easy to trace.
But gold?
It is portable. Even better, its value is recognized around the world. Our intrepid thieves knew they would ultimately be able to convert their gold into any currency they desired.
The victim told police she moved $3 million into the new accounts to buy gold. The scammers told her they were working with government authorities, and they would send a courier to collect the gold for safekeeping.
Now, this may seem obvious, but it obviously isn’t.
Government people do some cringy things, but they don’t have people cash out their life savings, buy gold, and hand it over to them. When the government steals from you, it just demands dollars and calls it a tax.
Thankfully, somebody was paying attention.
When the victim ordered $500,000 in American Gold Eagle coins from the Franklin Coin Store. The owner found the purchase suspicious and called local police, who contacted the FBI.
When authorities contacted the victim, they discovered she planned to drop off the coins that very day. Undercover officers went to the meet-up spot (a liquor store parking lot in Franklin, Indiana, because that’s where government officials like to conduct business) and busted the courier, who showed up claiming to be an undercover U.S. Marshall.
Police arrested Drashti Kamlesh Pandya, 23, an Indian woman living in Illinois on a green card. According to Fox 59, investigators charged the accused thief with one count of fraud, one count of theft, and one count of impersonation of a public official. She also caught a marijuana possession charge.
Pandya told investigators she worked as a courier for a large crime ring running the scam. She said a “family friend” from India orchestrated the crime along with others. She conceded that the job was “not good,” but said she needed the money. After all, weed is expensive. (She didn't say the weed part. But where’s the lie?)
Police searched the woman’s phone and found she had made at least 15 gold pickups from victims in Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Messages from the “family friend” saved on Pandya’s phone included photos of victims and maps to meet-ups. She told investigators she’d made about $10,000 working as a courier for the crime ring.
Franklin Coin Shop owner Sid Shock said this kind of scam is becoming more frequent.
“It sounds, on the outside, like something that just no one could possibly fall for, but unfortunately, in our industry, it’s become all too common. It’s plaguing shops around the country. This exact type of scam has been going on rather frequently, and it’s becoming more and more common.”
So, be careful out there. Don't click on unfamiliar or unsolicited links. Don't call strange numbers. And for the love of all that is good, be skeptical when people start talking to you about your money.
Oh, and don't hand gold coins to strangers in liquor store parking lots.
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