NEW YORK — A man who was scammed into moving his savings across the country was saved by the quick actions of a New York City Police Department detective.
The victim told investigative journalist Mahsa Saeidi of CBS News New York that he can’t believe he fell for it.
California man sends $20,000 to NYC apartment after committing scam
“It’s a little embarrassing,” said victim J. Nguyen of California.
First, a message appeared on his computer saying his account had been compromised, and to resolve it he had to make a phone call.
Nguyen said the scammer told him, “You need to withdraw your money and send it to the Central Bank.”
“I was kind of in a trance. I listened to her the whole time,” said Nguyen.
Hours later, they convinced Nguyen to withdraw $20,000 in cash and send it across the country to an address in New York City.
“I couldn’t believe it, I did it,” said Nguyen.
After sending the package, Nguyen suspected he had fallen for a scam and contacted the NYPD.
NYPD Det. Justin Guzman says he regularly gets calls about fraud, but this was a first.
“He said it was his entire life savings,” Guzman said. “He gave me the tracking number. I saw where it was delivered.’
Guzman rushed to the location, but it wasn’t a bank – it was an apartment in Bayside, Queens. He managed to retrieve the package before the scammers got their hands on it. Nguyen would now get his money back.
“It was a little bit of disbelief that it was actually there,” Guzman said.
“It’s a scam”
In a similar scam this year, a Brooklyn woman wasn’t so lucky. According to the NYPD, she handed over $100,000 to a man she was convinced she would meet in person after a fake tech support call.
Police say Wei Ping Sun, of Queens, has been arrested and charged with grand larceny in connection with this scam and will be arraigned on November 21.
Generally, prosecutors try to make the victim whole and may seek a court order to seize property and get the woman her money back.
“It’s a scam,” Guzman said.
In Nguyen’s case, the pop-up scam expanded into the gift card scam, where scammers ask a victim to purchase a gift card for fraudulent reasons and send them the card number. Then they cash in and disappear.
According to the NYPD, scammers will ask for gift cards so the victim can avoid arrest, keep utilities on or, in Nguyen’s case, pay for tech support.
“Because his bank had shut down the gift card scam, they turned around and went a different route to try to get him to send real money, and he did,” Guzman said.
“I have to give Detective Guzman a lot of credit… For some reason he believed in me, realized it was real and took action,” Nguyen said.
In short: don’t talk to these people on the phone. They sound legit, they make you panic and miss red flags.
