{"id":48245,"date":"2025-06-22T18:49:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T22:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/?p=48245"},"modified":"2025-06-17T13:54:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T17:54:52","slug":"a-fraud-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/a-fraud-story\/","title":{"rendered":"A Fraud Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Penny For Your Thoughts by: Nancy Whitaker<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scammers\u00a0and fraudsters\u00a0are on the rise all over.\u00a0Someone is always\u00a0trying to get into our private information and scammers are smarter than ever before.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A woman from the area learned a lesson about being scammed and wanted to share her story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She began, \u201cOne Saturday I was in my\u00a0living room and ordering a gift card for a relative. Then I received a text from my bank which asked, \u00a0\u201cHave you put a dollar on your card\u00a0today?\u201d The text had my banks logo on it and looked authentic.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continuing she said, \u201cThen I got a phone call from a lady who said she was an investigator with the National Fraud Department. She informed me that I had someone spending\u00a0money from my\u00a0bank account. They have all your pertinent information snd are spending money with your information.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was so upset that I cried and the fraudster assured me, \u201cOh we are gonna get him, but I need to have you answer a few questions. We are going to be moving your funds to another account. It is someplace that will keep it safe.\u00a0The frightening thoughts about someone taking her money was scary, fearful \u00a0and actually terrifying.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fraud bank lady said, \u201cWhat is your bank account number? What is your social security number?” Now she continues, \u00a0\u201cHow much is in your bank account?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After sharing all her information, the imposter told the scammed lady, \u201cI will call you Tuesday morning and don\u2019t touch a thing in your account.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A worried lady told her kids about it and her whole family informed her it was a fraud. The lady said that she cried all weekend and left her bank a message. The bank called her back that morning and told her to come into the bank branch and everything had to be redone. New account, new personal information, and it took over two hours to get things straight.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some things purchased with the scammed monies were: Walmart\u00a0and Amazon.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank explained that sometimes there are big rooms with computers and phones. To get at people\u2019s savings they will try every number and name to try and access your personal funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, if you don\u2019t know the person calling you, don\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never share your information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get strong passwords and you could even have a photo to log into your account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scammers are busy day and night, in different cities and countries, so please be vigilant and watch your banking carefully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trying to keep scammers away from us and our life savings takes various steps to keep your information secure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you have a story about a fraudster? If so, let me know and I\u2019ll give you a penny for your thoughts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Penny For Your Thoughts by: Nancy Whitaker Scammers\u00a0and fraudsters\u00a0are on the rise all over.\u00a0Someone is always\u00a0trying to get into our<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,12771],"tags":[26044,12838,12839],"class_list":["post-48245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-pennies-for-your-thoughts","tag-a-fraud-story","tag-nancy-whitaker","tag-penny-for-your-thoughts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Nancy-Whitaker.jpg?fit=318%2C324&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YQd9-cy9","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 07:49:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48246,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48245\/revisions\/48246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}