Michigan Man Lost $140,000 to a Phone Scammer

My cell phone literally rings a minimum of 10 times every single day, it freaking sucks. It's always an unknown number, so obviously I never answer it.

A Troy man was recently scammed big time by someone who claimed they were with United States Custom and Border Protection.

It was one of those calls where the scammer claimed there's a warrant out for your arrest. I've had these multiple times, they normally leave a message telling me I'm going to be arrested if I don't wire them money right away. In this man's case, he was told there was a warrant for his arrest after his name was found in a package that contained drugs and money enroute to Columbia from Texas. This is where I would have hung up but not this guy.

Acording to WXYZ, he was told not to go to the police station and was instructed to empty his bank accounts and wire the funds to two fake government accounts. This dude wired $72,707 to a bank account in Hong Kong and about $45,000 to a bank in Thailand. The icing on the cake was when they convinced him to buy $20,000 in gift cards from Target and Best Buy. That should have been the biggest red flag.

He got screwed out of about $140,000.

I would have to assume the victim was nothing more than a naive old man or something. I can't imagine anyone in their right mind falling for this. I know it happens all the time, it's just hard to comprehend.

The best thing you can do is ignore unknown calls coming into your phone. If it's something that's legit, they will leave a message.

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