Online scheme: Mesa woman offers tale of caution

PHOENIX - A 75-year-old Mesa woman is out thousands of dollars, after she fell victim to an online scheme.

Susan Guthrie was told she would lose her money, unless she deposited $25,000 into a crypto account.

It all began when Guthrie turned on her computer to check her email.

"There's a message on it that looked like it was Microsoft that said I'd been hacked, and I needed to call the number below, so they could take care of the problem for me," said Guthrie. "I never should have done that. I should have just turned off my computer."

A carefully-planned online scheme tricked Guthrie into thinking her bank account was hacked.

"They walked me through what I now realize was they were just [putting in] the right code, so they could take control of my computer," Guthrie said.

After communicating with two people online claiming to be with Microsoft, and then speaking with someone on the phone claiming to be from her bank. the con artists were successful.

"They had told him, when they did their scan, that it appeared that someone at my local Chase branch had been involved in this scam, had facilitated this scam," said Guthrie. "I couldn't go to my bank because we didn't know who was there that was involved."

Guthrie's daughter, Sarah, stepped in as soon as she heard what was going on, but it was too late.

"I was just devastated, overwhelmed. Couldn't believe it happened to me," said Guthrie.

After four hours on the phone with someone she thought was helping her, Guthrie deposited the $25,000 in a crypto account. Guthrie said this was her entire savings.

"What I needed to do to prevent the $25,000 from being taken by them was to take it out myself and put it into a secure wallet," said Guthrie. "They, you know, walked along with me, even when I was starting to have some little bits of doubt. He talk me through it and, you know, and that's what I did. And I basically gave it to them."

Mesa Police officials said they have no way of tracking the money because the victim didn't have names, did not know where the account came from, or if it is even in the country. Guthrie, however, was advised to file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which is run by the FBI.

"Now I know, and I'm hoping that somebody else will hear this, and it might save them some from being scammed themselves," said Guthrie.

Family members have set up a GoFundMe to help Guthrie.