.....boy asks to borrow cell phone [ the boy 'looked' 12 year old - could have been a grown adult pretending to be a child ].....Venmo not locked by Face ID.....2 days later, the user gets notification of 2 transactions totaling about $3800.....


.....the entire transaction was quick.....the news said the 'boy' had just opened his Venmo account 30 minutes earlier....


.....be aware of this scam.....don't lend cell phone to strangers or at least lock 'important' apps with Face ID/pin....



Boy asking to use phone for help instead uses Venmo to take nearly $4K, Baldwin Park woman says

....It was a calm Saturday evening in the picturesque Baldwin Park neighborhood in Orlando. Shannon Fraser was walking her dog when she said she ran into a young boy who told her this:

“‘My phone is dead. I can’t find my family or friends. I’ve lost them,’” Fraser said. “He’s on a scooter. And he’s like, ‘Can I please use your phone to call them?’”

She said she immediately helped him.

“Your first instinct is to help a kid,” she said. “Without thinking, and hindsight is 20/20, I just handed him my phone.”

She said the boy looked about 12 years old.

“He had the person on speaker. He’s like, ‘I can’t find you guys,’” she said. “He said, ‘Do you mind if I open your maps?’ So he opens up maps and I’m watching him do this. That’s the crazy part. I’m a foot away.”

They parted ways and Fraser did not think anything of it, until Monday night.

“I get alerts from my bank that my two Venmo transfers were approved,” she said. “One was in the amount of $1,800. The other one was in the amount of $2,000. And that’s when I stopped dead in my tracks.”

Fraser said she contacted Venmo immediately and discovered that the account that her money was transferred to was set up just 30 minutes before she met the boy.

“I feel like this is the new pickpocket,” she said. “They're preying on your kindness as opposed to just stealing something from you.”

The Better Business Bureau of Central Florida said this is an important warning especially since a number of times these situations go unreported. President and CEO Holly Salmons said her best advice is setting up face ID and a pin, not just for your phone, but for the app itself.

“Most of my apps were protected by face identification. I thought Venmo was as well. It wasn’t,” said Fraser.

In just three minutes, she said the boy took nearly $4,000.

On Tuesday evening, Fraser said Venmo credited her everything that was taken. She added while the company has credited her account, it has not yet given her access to the money until they complete their investigation.

She said she contacted Venmo and her bank and her next call is to police. She said she is sharing her story about how helping someone hurt her.

“It’s changed me in a lot of ways,” she said. “I think our guard has to be up more and that’s the sad part of the story.”

Venmo tells WESH 2 News that they looked into Fraser’s case and resolved the situation. They add that they are aware of this type of scam as they call it, but are not seeing a significant rise in reports. The company said they have a number of options for customers to enhance security to their accounts including enabling touch ID and pin and complete multi-factor authentication.


stolen.......?!

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I reject your reality and substitute my own!



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2022 06:32PM by NewtonMP2100.

My $1000 iPhone is never leaving my hands. If it's an emergency, speaker phone will have to do for them. Who wants someone else's greasy face all over the screen?! But then again,,, I'm watching Amazing Race on TV, and strangers lend their phones all the time. Next scam — people with a fake TV camera crew following them borrowing people's phones and stealing their money. LOL

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12 year old v63 would have gotten a big whuppin over that. I'd probably still be licking my wounds.

‘big whuppin’ with a baseball bat is what that ‘boy’ deserves

as a 12 yo, I got by just fine without a phone in my pocket.

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“A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand.” Seneca the Younger

The police have no duty to respond. See Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005) or Warren v. District of Columbia[1] (444 A.2d. 1, D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981)

Judge Lee wrote that “we cannot jettison our constitutional rights, even if the goal behind a law is laudable." 9th Circuit Court of Appeals

[www.youtube.com]

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d4
My $1000 iPhone is never leaving my hands. If it's an emergency, speaker phone will have to do for them. Who wants someone else's greasy face all over the screen?! But then again,,, I'm watching Amazing Race on TV, and strangers lend their phones all the time. Next scam — people with a fake TV camera crew following them borrowing people's phones and stealing their money. LOL

Maybe 12yo kids in other countries and cultures behave better than ours?

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********************************************
“A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand.” Seneca the Younger

The police have no duty to respond. See Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005) or Warren v. District of Columbia[1] (444 A.2d. 1, D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981)

Judge Lee wrote that “we cannot jettison our constitutional rights, even if the goal behind a law is laudable." 9th Circuit Court of Appeals

[www.youtube.com]

Clark Howard has been warning about this for several years. It seems crazy, but there you go.

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Racer X

Quote
d4
My $1000 iPhone is never leaving my hands. If it's an emergency, speaker phone will have to do for them. Who wants someone else's greasy face all over the screen?! But then again,,, I'm watching Amazing Race on TV, and strangers lend their phones all the time. Next scam — people with a fake TV camera crew following them borrowing people's phones and stealing their money. LOL

Maybe 12yo kids in other countries and cultures behave better than ours?

Nah, I'm guessing people act kinder when there's a camera crew in their face.

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