Scam emails pretending to be from PayPal have bilked several Eugeneans in recent weeks.
Eugene Police say one victim responded to the fake email, and was pressured into transferring his credit union’s balance into a supposedly protected and encrypted account. But the account was actually a Bitcoin machine wallet located at a West 11th liquor store, and the victim’s $15,000 is unrecoverable.
Another Eugenean was scammed out of $30,000 by a text claiming to be from Paypal security. Like the previous target, she was put on a call regarding a transaction she had not made, and was alerted to other problems which ended up with her depositing the money into a Bitcoin ATM.
Police say it’s important to know that a bank would never ask you to do transactions with texts and emails, and you should not respond. Complaints can be made directly with a bank or credit card company through phone numbers found on your official statements.
The EPD has a list of scams on its website. People can report scams to the FBI at a special site as well.
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