By John McLoone

An 83-year-old River Falls woman was reportedly scammed out of $16,000 in a computer fraud case. The woman’s daughter called police June 20 when her mother told her what happened.

The woman told investigators she was using her computer when it froze. An alert then popped up on the screen, stating that $10,000 in child pornography had been purchased on her computer. Shortly after, the woman’s phone rang, and the person calling said they were from her bank in River Falls, and that he could help get her money back. The woman was instructed to buy numerous gift cards and scan them into her computer. She did so and was called several times between June 21 and June 24 to purchase more. The caller told the woman that once he had the gift cards, he would remove the money from them and return it to her bank account.

The woman made three withdrawals in the amounts of $4,500, $2,500 and $3,000 on June 21, June 23 and June 24 from her bank and purchased 18 “Visa Vanilla” gift cards worth $500 each and 14 Target gift cards, also worth $500 each. She scanned them into her computer, where the scammers had set up remote access to access the scanned cards.

When she finally told her daughter what was occurring, the daughter learned that seven of the Visa cards still had $500 on them, while two had $5 and one has 56 cents. Visa froze the cards and filed a dispute on the remaining cards. She also filed a fraud com plaint with Target.

The daughter called the number that had been calling her mother in the 747 area code and said she wanted to speak to the person who had scammed her mother out of $16,000. A man at the number hung up on her.

The computer was taken to a local repair shop to have viruses removed, and investigators cloned the hard drive.

A River Falls Police Department investigator explained the dangers of fraud and that no legitimate agency would request to be paid in gift cards.