A Queens woman lost thousands of dollars after falling victim to an alleged wire transfer scam over the phone. But an NYPD officer found a text on her phone that helped her get all of the money back.<\/p>\n
The woman received a call telling her she was already the victim of fraud. The caller said she would have to quickly transfer $5,000 to a Western Union account to fix it.<\/p>\n
She later realized her mistake and thought the money was gone for good.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The text that stood out\u00a0<\/p>\n
Police officer Minh Hoang looked into the case. He found a text on her phone, buried in a barrage of messages from the scammers, that was different from the others. \u00a0<\/p>\n
It was Western Union saying they held the transfer due to possible fraud, which the woman initially thought was part of the ruse.<\/p>\n
“I immediately took her in my car and drove her to the nearest check-cashing place, and we were able to verify that the money was still in her account, and they reimbursed her money back,” Hoang said.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
He said the woman was “elated.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
“She was so happy, and that day that I went out to see her, that was actually her birthday. She turned 74 years old that day, so she was so happy to get that back,” Hoang said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“You can’t usually get it back”<\/p>\n
The Federal Trade Commission, police and banks across the country say it’s rare to recover money after such an incident.<\/p>\n
“You can’t usually get it back,” commission officials said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hoang said this type of issue are on the rise.<\/p>\n
“These scams were–every day, there’s hundreds of calls and platforms that they can call anyone,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perpetrators are increasingly using AI to mimic voices and make their tricks even more believable.<\/p>\n
If you do fall for one, experts say time is of the essence when trying to recover your wire transfer, but the best protection is prevention.<\/p>\n
Claire Rosenzweig from the Better Business Bureau said you shouldn’t panic if you’re tricked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“What you should do is directly call the financial institution at their official website or their number. You never respond to the email or text, whatever it is,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now Hoang and the NYPD are trying to figure out who the suspects are, so they can’t ruin any other birthdays.<\/p>\n