EL CAJON, Calif. — An El Cajon woman was scammed out of $30,000 after she received an email she believed was from Best Buy's Geek Squad, a tech support service she regularly uses.
Sue DuPont, 75, said there were red flags — and she hopes sharing her story will help others from losing their money as well. She's not alone. The Federal Trade Commission reported people lost more than $8 billion to scams and fraud in 2022, setting a new record.
Dupont, who has lost her son and husband within the last two years, said the scammers stole her nest egg as well.
The email from the scammers told she she needed to renew her Geek Squad contract. But when she saw three users still on the account, she called to make an adjustment. She initially thought they were going to credit her $300. She proceeded to give the person on the phone control of her computer, as she had done with the legitimate Geek Squad in the past, but they ended up stealing the initial $300 from her.
The scammers also made it seem like she is the one who stole from them.
DuPont said the scammers fabricated the numbers and moved decimals around to make it appear as if she stole $30,000 from them. She called when she felt something wasn't right — but they insisted she had to wire money to Cambodia and Columbia. Walmart denied the transfer. They also told her to not tell anyone what it was for, and the alleged employee would get in trouble with his boss.
She says she was able to withdraw $30,000 from her account at Bank of America and mail it via UPS.
“They told me to put the money in books, wrap the books, put the books in the safe, it had a key with a combination,” said DuPont.
A few days later there was no money in her account. She asked the scammers where the money was, and they showed her a fake bank statement that the money was in there.
“Who knows what's real and what isn't?” said DuPont.
She reported the scam to the FBI Internet Crimes Complaint Center (IC3). A spokesperson for the FBI San Diego office said they were not available for comment about this case but recommended steps victims take if they fall for a scam.
They recommend victims freezing their accounts, change, usernames and passwords.
She says the real Geek Squad removed the malware and found four people were able to access her computer.
“There's no way I can recoup the money without somebody going after them,” said DuPont.
CBS 8 also connected DuPont with locally based Identity Theft Resource Center to guide her through the process of gaining her security back.
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