Salina resident loses $5,000 in gift card cash to scammers posing as AT&T employees

By OLIVIA BERGMEIER
Salina Post

While finalizing details of his mother's estate, a 79-year-old Salina resident received a phone call from an alleged scammer and lost $5,000 in gift card cash.

The scammer, posing as an AT&T employee, called the victim on Wednesday and reported that the company would credit his mother's account $600 with some online assistance from the victim.

"This subject [suspect] had a foreign accent," said Salina Police Department Capt. James Feldman. "The subject [suspect] then instructed the victim to log into what was supposedly an AT&T account and enter some information so they could credit it."

After entering information into the website, the victim reported the suspect then instructed him to enter the $600 into a text box, but the victim accidentally entered $6,000.

The suspect then redirected the victim to another suspect posing as an AT&T employee to correct the victim's transaction error.

"He was directed to someone else to make arrangements to 'make the transaction right,'" Feldman said. "That person instructed the victim to go to the store and purchase $5,000 in gift cards, which he did."

According to Feldman, the victim purchased six $500 Nordstrom gift cards and four $500 CVS gift cards and gave the gift card information to the suspects posing as AT&T employees.

The suspects then ended the call, and the victim reported the incident to SPD the following day, Thursday, Feb. 29.

"So, of course, no suspect information," Feldman said. "We want to remind everybody that if any business or government agency ever asks for gift cards, it's a scam."

Feldman said the victim did not provide any bank information to the scammers, but gift card transactions are more anonymous and difficult to track the cash receiver.