TROY, Mich. (WWJ) -- The public is being warned of more phone scams after a pair of Troy residents were duped into purchasing thousands of dollars worth of gift cards earlier this month.
Troy police say around 3 p.m. on Feb, 3, a victim received a phone call from a subject identifying himself as Alex Wade from Amazon. The scammer convinced the victim that he had been refunded too much money into his bank account and told him he would be in trouble with the law unless he purchased eBay gift cards from Wal-Mart, CVS and 7-11 to refund the money.
The victim purchased roughly $6,000 worth of eBay cards and wire-transferred the funds to the scammer before he realized it was a trap.
In a separate incident, police say a woman was contacted by an unknown subject asking if she owned a vehicle in Texas. The scammer told the woman that he was from the Federal Bureau of Investigations. He told her she would be arrested if she didn't follow the instructions.
The victim hung up, but then received a phone call from a number that was masked to be from the Troy Police Department. The caller stated he was Officer Michael Brown and told her that if she wanted to stay out of jail, she needed to purchase gift cards from Target totaling $1,360.
The woman bought the Target cards, provided the serial numbers to the caller and then later realized she had been scammed.
The second scam is similar to one reported last week by the Macomb County Sheriff's Office.
In those cases, two men received calls from scammers posing as police. In at least one instance, the caller's number was "ghosted" to show up as being from the Macomb County Sheriff's Office.
Police are urging the public to take caution and contact authorities if they receive suspicious calls. Police will never ask for money over the phone and government agencies would never accept retail gift cards as a form of payment.
