Norfolk County Resident Loses $20,000 in an Online Scam

A resident of Norfolk County faced a computer scam, and he was robbed off an amount of $20,000 by the scammer. The scam took place when he received a call saying that his computer has got a virus. Norfolk County Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) started investigating the matter when the victim informed them about the fraud.

Ontario Provincial Police said that the victim told them that an unknown man had called him to tell that his computer got compromised. The victim also informed the police that he has granted remote access of his computer to the caller, and after this it was noticed that the spammer was accessing his banking information as well as personal files. In front of the victim, the scammer removed huge amount of money from his online banking account.

Police said that the caller was able to transfer around $20,000 from the victim's bank account.

In order to protect the people from such kind of scam, the police have offered various tips. As per the police, if and when someone receives phone calls where a company says that the computer has been compromised and need scanning for a virus, one should not listen to it. "Police are urging everyone to hang up the phone if you should receive such a call," as per a news release of Police.

The residents are reminded by the police that until a personal call is made to someone for rectifying any computer related problem, one should not give an access of the computer to anyone. "Don't give out personal, banking or credit card information to anyone unless you are sure of whom you are dealing with," said Ontario Provincial Police as per a news release.

Ontario Provincial Police has also released tips in order to help the computer users in protecting themselves from any online fraud. Some of these are: one should not download any kind of anti-virus software from a link or pop-up that has been received through an e-mail; the anti-virus software should thoroughly be updated and computer should be scanned for any virus on regular basis; and one should not click on the links or attachments received through emails from unknown sources.

» SPAMfighter News - 8/27/2018