An 81-year-old Syracuse woman alerted police after being targeted by phone scammers who know her address and threatened to burn down her house if she didn’t follow their instructions, according to Bill Martin, the woman’s son. Last week, the woman received a call saying she’d won $5,000 in the lottery. Knowing it was a scam, she hung up. Thirty seconds...
An 81-year-old Syracuse woman alerted police after being targeted by phone scammers who know her address and threatened to burn down her house if she didn’t follow their instructions, according to Bill Martin, the woman’s son.
Last week, the woman received a call saying she’d won $5,000 in the lottery. Knowing it was a scam, she hung up.
Thirty seconds later, the man with a foreign accent called back and threatened to burn down her house and sexually assault her if she didn’t let him come to her house to drop off a check, Martin said.
Police said they’ve received numerous complaints in the past month about nearly identical scams. The scammer demands money from the victim in exchange for a promise of money in the future — money that doesn’t exist.
The scammer has made about 15 harassing phone calls to Martin’s family in the past three months, he said. When his mother asked the scammer how he’d found her, the scammer read her Fairfield Avenue address back over the phone.
About a month ago, Martin, of Cicero, was visiting his mother when the scammer called.
Martin said he answered and confronted the caller. During a heated five-minute exchange, Martin said, the man threatened to shoot his entire family and burn down their house.
Fed up and scared for his family’s safety, Martin had his mother file a complaint with the Syracuse police Friday. He provided a copy of the report to The Post-Standard.
His mother, who asked not to be identified because she fears for her safety, said the caller used “filthy” language that she would not repeat. Her son said that included death threats and explicit descriptions of sexual abuse.
In the police report, Officer Jeff Beauchine said he called one of the scammers’ numbers. The man who answered claimed to work for Bank of America helping elderly with credit card debt, according to the report.
To see what would happen, the officer gave the man a fake name, credit card number, Social Security number and date of birth, the report stated. The scammer told the officer he was heavily in debt, and he asked the officer to transfer $10,000 into a Bank of America account. The scammer also gave the officer a “secret passcode” for future use.
In addition, the scammer gave the officer the names of two people — in Tennessee and Texas — to whom he would need to send $5,000 to start paying off debt.
In the middle of the conversation, the scammer changed tactics and told the officer he had won $5.5 million in the Las Vegas lottery and would receive a brand-new Mercedes-Benz, the report stated.
“He then appeared to realize that I was contacting to clear a debt problem and would no longer speak of the Las Vegas Lottery or Mercedes-Benz,” Beauchine wrote in his report.
Beauchine noted that police are investigating numerous complaints over the past month regarding similar scams. Martin said he also alerted the FBI.