One person in Redmond has reportedly lost $80,000 to a “sophisticated” scam impersonating health insurance providers and law enforcement officers according to The Redmond Police Department.
In a post to Facebook Friday, the department warned the public that the scam has recently targeted people that speak Chinese. according to the department, another person was preparing to send $100,000 to the scammers before recognizing that the operation was fraudulent.
According to the department victims of the scam first received a phone call from a person claiming to represent United Healthcare who claimed that there was a problem with their insurance plan or that their personal information had been compromised.
Victims are then transferred to another person, who the department said reportedly often is speaking Chinese. This time, the victim is contacted on zoom by someone dressed as a police officer. They are then told that there is a warrant out for their arrest and the only way to resolve it is to wire money to a bank account in China.
The department warns that victims have also been asked to present photos of identification.
In a statement the department said that law enforcement “will never ask you to wire money to avoid arrest or resolve a warrant” and “Government agencies and legitimate businesses will never demand immediate payment through wire transfers.”
The department also advised the public to never share identifying information with an unknown caller and upon receiving a suspicious phone call to immediately hang up and call the organization that the caller claimed to be from on a verified phone number.
The department said that if anyone believes they have been a victim of a scam they should contact their bank as soon as possible, report the incident to local law enforcement and file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at www.ic3.gov.