{"id":128794,"date":"2026-03-03T21:56:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/128794\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T21:56:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:56:29","slug":"ftc-scam-costs-pittsburgh-area-resident-5-million-police-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/128794\/","title":{"rendered":"FTC scam costs Pittsburgh-area resident $5 million, police say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>State police are investigating after a Pittsburgh-area resident was scammed out of over $5 million by people pretending to be the Federal Trade Commission.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to a public information release report from Pennsylvania State Police, the U.S. Secret Service notified troopers in Greensburg about a fraud investigation on Feb. 24.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Police said the victim was scammed out of over $5 million by people posing as the FTC. The scam started when the victim responded to a text message about a PayPal transaction. Troopers said that text served as a &#8220;catalyst&#8221; for the scammers to contact the victim, this time pretending to be the FTC.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At first, the victim was asked for cash, then he was asked to buy gold bars, police said. Those transactions were completed in the area of Unity Township.<\/p>\n<p>Saying the investigation is ongoing, police are asking anyone who has been a victim of &#8220;similar circumstances&#8221; to contact them, whether or not they gave away money. Other potential victims are asked to contact Trooper Kinger at 724-832-3288.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/consumer.ftc.gov\/articles\/how-avoid-scam#avoid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The FTC says<\/a>\u00a0scammers often pretend to be from an organization you know. They&#8217;ll say there&#8217;s a problem or a prize and pressure you to act immediately, requesting payment in a specific way.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Honest organizations won&#8217;t call, email or text you for personal information, the FTC says. If you get an email or text you think is real, it&#8217;s best not to click on any links. Instead, contact the business with a website you know is trustworthy or look up its phone number. Experts say honest businesses will give you time to decide, so anyone who pressures you is a scammer. And never pay someone who insists you use a specific method like cryptocurrency, a wire transfer or a payment app.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State police are investigating after a Pittsburgh-area resident was scammed out of over $5 million by people pretending&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74,9340,5910],"class_list":["post-128794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-scam-alert","tag-westmoreland-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}