Amazon Scam Empties Senior's Retirement

I'm trying to help my neighbor, Vicki, a senior citizen who is the sole provider for herself and her adult son who is disabled due to a traumatic brain injury. Last week she got a legitimate looking email from Amazon saying that they discovered someone had charged an iPhone to her account and when they tried to refund the charge they accidentally deposited too much money back into her account. They asked her to refund the money. Wanting to help clear up the “error”, she followed their directions to return the overpayment. The thieves took over her computer and transferred $84,000, all of her money, out of her accounts. She was frantic. Not only because it was all of her money, but she was panicked knowing that now she wouldn’t have enough funds to take care of herself and her son.

The FDIC doesn’t insure scams and the police filed a report but could do little else. This could happen to any of us. Senior citizens lost almost $1 billion in scams last year, according to an FBI report released this week. Almost 2,000 older Americans lost more than $100,000, the report said.

Vicki's only income is from Social Security, which doesn't cover her living costs. She depended on her savings to meet those expenses. Thank you for any help you can give Vicki.