Caller told Fort Worth woman her IP address was used for child porn. He then scammed her
A Fort Worth woman was scammed out of more than $1,000 on Monday after a caller told her that her IP address was being used to distribute child porn and she needed to purchase gift cards to prevent federal charges, according to Fort Worth police.
She bought three gift cards totaling more than $1,000 before the caller ended the conversation, and took the money, police said.
The woman contacted her bank Tuesday to explain the situation and bank officials advised her they could not help because she willingly purchased the gift cards. She then called Fort Worth police.
The woman told police that she lost her wallet at an Arlington restaurant on Friday.
Days later, the woman reported that on Monday she received a call from an unknown number and the caller claimed there was child pornography connected to her IP address, and told her it was a federal offense and she needed to cooperate with him to prevent any charges.
The scammer told her to download three different monitoring applications on her phone so he could view offsite every step she was taking, according to a Fort Worth preliminary police report.
During their conversations the scammer had the woman purchase three gift cards for different amounts of $990, $499 and $499. The caller stayed on the phone with the woman while she obtained the gift cards, and he then had her scan them through Amazon to verify they were active.
At one point during their conversation the call was dropped, but the scammer called her back. Eventually, the conversation ended Monday afternoon.
On Tuesday, the woman realized that she had been scammed.
