Virtual kidnap scam costs woman $1,400

A Cherokee County woman is out $1,400 after she was ordered to wire money to someone threatening to kill her husband as part of a scam, Channel 2 Action News reported.

The woman, who was not identified, said she got a call Monday as she was leaving work from someone claiming to be holding her husband hostage, Channel 2 reported. She grew terrified when she went to text her husband, but got a text saying: “Don’t touch your phone. If you text him or call, I’m going to kill him.”

“It hits you all so quickly,” she told the news station. “Your emotions are in so many different ways. It was terrifying, completely terrifying.”

What the woman didn’t know at the time was that she was a victim of a virtual kidnapping phone scam, according to Channel 2. The cases are often difficult to prosecute since the suspects stay outside of the country, the news station reported.

The caller told the woman that her husband hit the caller’s nephew leaving a gas station, but they had agreed not to involve the police.

“‘Your husband didn’t cooperate,’” the woman recounted to Channel 2. “‘He called 911.’”

The caller told the woman her husband had a gun to his head and if she didn’t follow instructions he was going to be killed, Channel 2 reported. The woman was ordered to send two $700 money orders to an address in Puerto Rico in exchange for her husband’s life.

After the ordeal was over, the woman drove to her home and saw her husband’s car parked in their cul-de-sac.