A Windom woman lost about $4,250 to a con artist, in a scam involving an emailer posing as a representative of Amazon.
The woman was told her account had been hacked and in order to retrieve the account she needed to go to the store and buy gift cards, get numbers off the cards. She then provided those numbers to the scam artist.
The victim made purchases of gift cards — in increments of at least $500 — multiple times.
“This scam is out there,” said Cory Hillesheim, Windom assistant police chief. “No one from Amazon will call and say you must give us gift cards in order to get your account back.
“We cannot stress this enough, if people have questions about something like this, just call the authorities. We will be more than glad to help out.”
Share your scam story
Local law enforcement is concerned about the impact of scams on area residents, particularly the elderly.
Consequently, this newspaper works with local police and sheriff’s departments to keep residents updated on common schemes. Scam Alerts will appear in future editions as often as possible in the coming weeks.
Readers can also find online scam updates at windomnews.com.
If you have been the target of a scam, your first contact should be local authorities. Also, feel free to contact us with details (we can keep your name confidential).
Send your story to: rahnl@windomnews.com, or call 507-831-3455. By sharing, you could prevent someone from being scammed.
Watch www.windomnews.com for regular weekday updates at 10:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., plus BREAKING stories at other times. Follow CoCoCitizen @CitPub on Twitter.
Local woman caught in Amazon scam
