Phone scammer tricks woman into undressing to “verify her identity,” Ohio cops say
After a phone scammer convinced a woman to transfer him nearly $6,000, he tricked her into undressing on a FaceTime call, Ohio police said.
The woman received a call on July 23 from a man posing as a person from a bank, Mayfield Heights police said. The man said there was fraudulent activity on her account and she needed to move her money so it wouldn’t be stolen.
The woman took down the numbers to a bank account the fraudster gave her and put the debit card information into her Apple Wallet, per the fraudster’s instructions.
She went to the ATM and transferred $5,900 to the account, she told police. The woman then tried to remove the funds from the account, but the withdrawal did not go through, police said.
The Mayfield Heights woman left the bank and returned home after depositing thousands, but the phone scammer continued, police said. He called her via FaceTime but did not turn on his camera. The caller asked the woman to provide him with a “full body scan to verify her identity” because a transaction failed, police said.
He tricked the woman into undressing and spinning in circles as a means of verification, according to police. She didn’t realize the call and transaction was a scam until she heard the fraudster laughing, the woman told police.
Police said the woman tried to withdraw the money after realizing the scam, but she was again denied.
Cuyahoga County Consumer Affairs said this is the first time it has dealt with this situation.
“Criminals often pose as banks or law enforcement to try to scare people into paying, but this scenario is not one we have heard of previously,” a spokesperson said in an email to McClatchy News.
Mayfield Heights is about a 20-mile drive east of Cleveland.
This story was originally published July 31, 2024 at 1:12 PM with the headline "Phone scammer tricks woman into undressing to “verify her identity,” Ohio cops say."
