Vista woman loses $24K in Lowes gift card scam

Vista resident Jan Hoops fell for a gift card scam last week that began with a pop-up alert on her computer, telling her to call a fake number for Microsoft.

D“He explained that they had hacked into my banking account and my CD account, and they had stolen the money,” Hoops said.

The con man convinced her to withdraw thousands of dollars from her bank account.

[L.Spencer]

She didn't listen to her credit union nor the Lowe's employees? What else can you do?

[gemgal]

With all the information out there about how to avoid scams and she ignored the warnings, she gets what she deserves.

[joeykc]

She was WARNED by MULTIPLE employees from both the bank and Lowe's and she still withdrew the money. Then she bought all those gift cards.


Sorry. I cannot have any sympathy for her. For Christs sake. Multiple people told you it's a fucking scam and you didn't listen to them.

[DanielPacheco-oq]

It's her fault that she didn't listen to the credit union and Lowes employees

[kop]

24k for a virus ? Why not just get a whole new one

[catbangs]

this is not a new scam and has been out there for about a decade. Props to Lowes and credit union for warning customer, but you can't control if they will listen.

[SHerit-qv]

She’s needs to watch the bee keeper movie

[Broseidon]

I hope she doesnt get a single penny back, she was warned multiple times and ignored them

[moleeds]

When that so-called virus message comes up, hard shutdown the computer by holding down the power, button then disconnect the computer from the internet, (you may need to power off your router), then reboot the computer. Now that the computer is not connected to the internet, the scam message cannot load and should be a blank window. Close the scam message window, then, reconnect the internet to the computer. If the router was turned off, it will need to be powered back on before reconnecting to the internet. The scam message should be gone.

[SamLove-lp]

Good lord, that's the dumbest scam ever, she needs to look up gullible in the dictionary. It will show a picture of her.

[JetHawk]

What will the scammer do with Lowe gift cards? Why not visa gift cards?

[csowner]

im pretty sure she voted democrat too. no sympathy whatsoever

[bbustin]

Call a family member, friend, or someone familiar with these type of situations. and get a second opinion. She is gullible. He must have had a god like voice and she believed him.