A 55-year-old Key Biscayne woman was nearly scammed out of $30,000 cash earlier this month by thieves pretending to work for Bank of America.
The Village continues to see an uptick in fraud cases with two of the most recent cases involving two village council members.
Police Chief Frank Sousa has acknowledged the uptick to the Independent and cautioned residents to always take precautions and verify who’s asking and looking for things.
“We are planning on doing something with the Village to put out an informational campaign, but more information to come on that,” Sousa said.
At about 2 p.m. Nov. 7, the victim received a text message allegedly from Bank of America, asking if she was attempting to make a $836 purchase at the Apple Store, according to a police report. She responded ‘no’ and soon after received a call from someone claiming to be from the bank’s fraud department, saying that the incident required further investigation.
The scammer went on to tell the victim that someone fitting her description had attempted to withdraw $30,000 through a wire transfer from her bank account.
“They convinced her to help them in catching those responsible and that it was possibly an inside job.They said that these people needed to be stopped,” Key Biscayne police officer Oscar Gonzalez wrote in the incident report.
The victim told them she was not available that day, a Friday, but available the following day.
On Nov. 8, the victim got another call from the same person who instructed her to go to her bank and withdraw $30,000. She went to the Bank of America branch in the Village, but it was closed, so they told her to go to the location at 5000 Biscayne Blvd, Miami.
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“They coached her on what documents to bring and to get everybody’s name who she made contact with,” Gonzalez said in the report.
When the victim got home with the $30,000 in cash, her sister questioned the money withdrawal. The victim explained that she was helping the bank to catch the suspects attempting to defraud her.
Then, the victim reported being told that an Uber driver was 12 minutes away from her condominium home.
“That was when she realized it was a scam. She told the individual that she wasn’t going to give the money to the Uber driver. The individual became irate, telling her that she could be arrested for interfering with the investigation,” the incident report states.
The victim cut off all communication with the would-be thieves and called police. She also called Bank of America and froze her accounts and planned to go into the bank on the following Monday to report to them what had occurred.
The Independent reached out to the victim but she was unavailable.
Jessica De Leon is a general assignment reporter at the Key Biscayne Independent.