Key Largo woman a victim of fraud

A 61-year-old Key Largo woman became a victim of fraud after she unwittingly gave someone computer access to someone purporting to be from the online shopping site “Etsy”.

The woman told deputies she ordered something from “Etsy” and didn’t receive the item. She looked up what she thought was Etsy customer service and called the number. The person she spoke to said the account she purchased from was flagged as fraudulent and if she wanted her money back she had to download an application called Imperious Remote Desktop to her computer. The person then told her to send money to someone in her cash app and then have the person return it. She said that is how Etsy would “verify” her cash app account, after which she would receive her money back.

She sent $2,700 to a friend, who then returned it to her via the cash app. Before the money could be redeposited in her cash app account, however, someone removed the money from the cash app, applying jt to a card that does not belong to the victim. When she tried to call the customer service number back she had no success.

A short time later, the same person she spoke with called her back from a different number. They had words on the phone and she said that is when she realized she’d been scammed. She later learned that the remote desktop application she downloaded allows someone else to remotely control her computer.

Detectives will be investigating.

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