JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville woman contacted the I-TEAM after she became suspicious when she called what she thought was a Google help line and ended up being connected to an apparent con artist.
Amy Chesson said she found the bogus number when she searched the internet looking for a Google support phone number. She wanted to talk with a “real” person about a problem she was having with her Gmail account.
"All of a sudden, I noticed that I wasn’t receiving emails," said Chesson. "So I got online and googled the phone number for Google support."
When she called the number she found online, she was connected to a man who identified himself as Daniel. She said he sounded legitimate at first.
“He said my email account had been hacked. It was hacked in Michigan, Colorado and Canada,” Chesson said. She added that the man told her he was going to flag her account but that she needed to do something right away so they could stop the hacker from doing any more damage.
"'I need you to go to a Walgreens, get a Google Play card and then call me back,'" Chesson recalled him saying. She said he told her to get a gift card with at least $50 on it and then call him back with the security code. "He said, 'Then we can remove the hackers and we can release your account.'"
When he started pressuring her to buy the Google Play card immediately and call him back right away, she hung up and called the I-TEAM. We called the Better Business Bureau. Tom Stephens, president of the Northeast Florida office, said Chesson most likely came across a tech scam during her internet search for a Google support phone number.
"That is what we call a technical support company that makes people believe they are dealing with Google or Microsoft or Apple, but they’re not. They’re dealing with a private company and they’re trying to get as much money out of you as possible," Stephens said. "No legitimate business will ever ask you to pay a bill using a gift card."
Stephens said scam artists ask for Google Play cards, iTunes cards and retail gift cards as payment because once you give them the security code on the back, it is just like cash and is nearly impossible to trace. So, the scammer usually gets away with it.
Chesson said she knows from watching News4Jax that thieves will call their victims or send them bogus emails demanding money for a service or to fix a problem, but this scam was different. She thought she was doing the right thing by initiating the contact. Stephens said she likely stumbled onto a bogus website during her online search, which led her to a con artist.
How to recognize a bogus website
"Be very specific in your Google search and be very specific in the results that you click on," said Stephens. He said to make sure the link actually contains google.com or microsoft.com. Also, he said you should hover over any link you click on with your mouse to make sure it is the actual link you are looking for.
We called the number Chesson dialed twice. The first time we called, it was disconnected. The second time, an automated message told us someone would return our call but made no reference to Google.
The Federal Trade Commission recently warned consumers about scams involving gift cards as payment, which you can read about on the FTC website.
We reached out to Google last week, asking whether it is aware scam artists may be using a website with its name and number, but we have not heard back.