Manitowoc County Public Safety Chairman James Falkowski is warning seniors about the latest scam.
The “Phantom Hacker” scam targets senior citizens and can cause them to lose their life savings.
The FBI says there are three different versions. The first is called the Tech Support Imposter.
The scammer calls, texts, or emails the victim through a legitimate company that tells them to call a number for “assistance.”
Once the victims call the number, the scammer asks them to download a program to gain remote access to the victim’s computer before “running a virus scan” and asking them to open their financial accounts to take their info.
The second is called the Financial Institution Imposter, where a scammer posing as a financial institution’s representative claims the victim’s accounts were accessed by foreign hackers and their money must be moved to a “safe” third party account.
The scammer directs the victim to transfer money to cash or cryptocurrency often to overseas recipients.
The third is the US Government Imposter where a person posing as a US Government official where the scammer claims the victim’s funds are “unsafe” and must be moved to a new “alias” account for protection until the victim concedes.
The FBI reminds people not to click on any unsolicited email or anything they don’t recognize. To report the scam, you can go to www.ic3.gov.
