Crime & Safety
One Victim Smells Scam; Another Duped $4,000
Both involved prepaid cards. An arrest is merely an accusation and not evidence of a conviction.
An 87-year-old Niles woman told police Oct. 29 she had received a phone call in which the caller said she had won an award for paying her bills on time. The caller told the victim to go to a retail store and purchase a prepaid card in the amount of $1,000. The caller told the victim this would verify her identity and she would then receive the award of $500,000.
The woman, of the 8900 block of Wisner, sensed it was a scam and she hung up. Another man called her back and said he wanted to clarify the instructions, but she didn't give him any further information.
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Another victim of this scam not so lucky
On Oct. 29, the manager of a store in the 9600 block of Milwaukee Avenue called police to report that one of his customers, a 78-year-old Glenview man, may have been scammed. The Glenview man had been coming into his store to buy prepaid cards for the past month, he said, and then having the value of the cards wired to an unknown person. On investigating, Niles police learned someone had called the Glenview man and told him he had won $3.5 million, and he needed to wire them money in order to collect the grand prize. Over the past month, he sent them $4,000. Police are investigating.
Find out what's happening in Niles-Morton Grovewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Information is taken from Niles Police Department reports.
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