Phone scam ‘ elder abuse’

A PENSIONER came closing to losing thousands of dollars through iTunes vouchers in a threatening scam.

The 80- year- old Balgal Beach woman, who wished to remain anonymous, was conned into buying $ 4000 in vouchers by a caller purporting to be from Telstra.

The woman’s daughter- inlaw, Kathleen Church, said the caller was “quite forceful” and told her “dangerous people” had compromised her computer.

“It’s like elder abuse. The conversation he had with her was really bullying,” Mrs Church said.

“He kept saying they were very, very dangerous people. Don’t tell anyone about this call.”

Mrs Church said her mother- in- law received the first call late last Wednesday night with the order: “I need you to go down to the shops to buy $ 1000 of iTunes vouchers.”

Mrs Church said the caller then organised a taxi to pick her mother- in- law up during the State of Origin match and drive her to Woolworths in Deeragun – a $ 300 round trip.

She said once the vouchers were purchased her motherin- law told the caller the num- bers on the backs of the cards, allowing them to be spent.

The caller struck again the next day.

Mrs Church said her mother- in- law was ordered to buy $ 2000 worth of vouchers at the Rollingstone Post Office and $ 1000 from Coles at Deeragun.

Rollingstone Post Office owner and manager Rosco Jessop said when the 80- year- old stepped in and wanted to buy $ 2000 of iTunes vouchers, flags were raised “immediately”.

“She didn’t even know what the product was,” Mr Jessop said. “I just reversed those transactions as soon as she walked out the door.”

Mr Jessop said Australia Post staff had been briefed on scams and said there was another one doing the rounds where callers pretended to be from the Australian Taxation Office.

Mrs Church said Coles staff also warned her mother- in- law she was being scammed.

She said the second lot of iTunes vouchers purchases were able to be cancelled but her mother- in- law was $ 1300 out of pocket for the first $ 1000 purchases and taxi fare.

Telstra phone scams were on the rise at the start of the month, according to the Australian Government’s Scamwatch. It said there had been 403 reports of such scams from July 2- 8.