Description

Received call from person identifying themselves as federal trade commission commissioner Alvaro Bedoya. They said my identity had been stolen and that my social security number had been compromised. They said I needed to follow their instructions or my bank account would be frozen and in order to help protect my identity. The person pretending to be this commissioner used complex financial and governmental jargon to make it all sound more realistic. I questioned the person and was suspicious for the start but based on how realistic it sounded and how much the person knew about mw I followed the person’s instructions. They told me to go to the nearest bank and withdraw as much money as I could as that money would then be put in a safe government account so that when my bank account was frozen I could still use this money. Because I was still somewhat suspicious of the entire situation, I only withdrew $500 even though I could have withdrawn more. $500 was how much I was willing to sacrifice in the case that this was in fact a real situation. The person then told me to go to a local Walmart and out the $500 onto a releasable debit card. The person then convinced me to give them the card details. After this they were trying to send me a QR code to have me put $2000 more on the card. To this I refused, stating that because he had not given me any concrete proof that they or this situation was real. They told me I could look them up online as Alvaro Bedoya, so I looked up a YouTube video and realized that the person on the phone sounded nothing like the real Alvaro Bedoya. This proved to me that it was a scam. This has since been reported to the real FTC.