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A 74-year-old Hackettstown woman received an email from Amazon referencing a possible incident of fraud on her account, police said.
The woman called the number in the email (1-833-392-5331) and was told that she needed to purchase a SIM card to fix the problem, police said.
The victim’s 76-year-old husband then purchased $9,000 worth of gift cards from various stores and read the numbers to the scammer, police said.
“The wife attempted to call her husband to stop because she realized something was wrong but the scammer wouldn’t allow him to hang up the phone,” police said.
The couple then received several calls overnight from a number appearing as 253-387-5543, according to police.
“Remember: Gift cards are for gifts, not for payments,” Hackettstown Police said. “If someone calls with urgent news or a convincing story and then pressures you to pay them by buying a gift card and then giving them the codes on the back of the card – stop. It’s a scam.”
Victims of similar phone and email scams should file a complaint at ftc.gov/complaint.
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