DUNMORE, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Pennsylvania State Police are warning residents about a computer scam that tricks victims into sending cryptocurrency to fraudsters posing as Microsoft support technicians.<\/p>\n
According to state police in Dunmore, the latest reported victim is a 79-year-old woman from Dunmore who was targeted through what investigators described as a “Microsoft Support Bitcoin Scam.” The attempted theft involved approximately $10,000.<\/p>\n
Police said the scam typically begins when a victim encounters a pop-up message on a computer or cellphone claiming to be from Microsoft Security. The message warns that the device has been compromised by viruses or other suspicious activity and urges the user to call a toll-free number for assistance.<\/p>\n
Investigators said callers are then connected with someone pretending to be a Microsoft technician. The scammer claims the victim’s computer has been severely compromised and instructs them to purchase Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency and transfer it to a specified digital wallet address.<\/p>\n
State police said scammers often use high-pressure tactics, including threats that personal information could be deleted or shared if immediate action is not taken.<\/p>\n
Authorities are reminding residents that legitimate technology companies do not demand payment in cryptocurrency to fix computer problems.<\/p>\n
Police advise anyone who encounters a message claiming their device has been infected to independently verify the source and avoid sending money or cryptocurrency to unknown individuals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUNMORE, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Pennsylvania State Police are warning residents about a computer scam that tricks victims…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-215003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215003","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=215003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}