Elderly woman tries to sell her $30 table on Facebook — she narrowly escaped losing $3,000 a day
Online platforms have opened up avenues for people to interact and conduct business with anyone across the globe. But, the anonymity that social media users enjoy has also made others vulnerable to fraudulent schemes in the digital landscape. It is particularly tough for older folks who have spent a major part of their lives without the internet. One such elderly woman, who listed a table for sale on Facebook Marketplace, was caught off guard when she was targeted by a scammer. Sandra Pond from Canada was just trying to get rid of an old table and thought that someone might be interested in buying it online. This is when she decided to post an ad on Facebook Marketplace asking $30 for the piece of furniture. After the listing got a response almost immediately, she thought, "Gosh, I should have asked for more," according to CBC.
The potential customer who responded later told her that he wasn't in town and asked if she would hold on to the table for some time. He offered to pay the full amount via Interac (a common online payment method in Canada) in exchange. Pond then sent her email address and immediately received an email indicating that the person in question had sent her $30. Since the email looked authentic with an Interac logo, the woman didn't think twice before clicking on a link and entering her account details.
After she entered her banking information, a loading symbol began spinning on the page and a note instructed her not to refresh it. Pond grew suspicious when the page failed to load and decided to stop the process after realizing something wasn't right. "In retrospect, I was thinking afterward, 'A few minutes while I take all your money,'" she said. Pond then got an email from the bank asking her to change her password and instead of following through, she called her bank. They told her that they had locked the account since someone had tried to withdraw $3,000, which was her daily limit. Thankfully, both Pond and her bank acted just in time to stop the scammer from withdrawing $3,000 every day.
After Pond reset her account and got everything back on track, she decided to connect with the scammer on Facebook and called him out after which the buyer deleted his account. Pond was relieved after she was able to save her money and wanted to share her story in hopes of spreading awareness. "If you aren’t checking your account every day, this could happen to you," she told the publication. "It just makes you shake, it just makes you think, ‘Wow, how easy it is for them to scam you.'"
According to Statista, the number of cybercrime incidents including online fraud have only increased from 467,000 in 2019 to more than 880,000 in 2023. According to the reports, monetary losses caused by cyber criminals have also seen a spike from $3.5 billion to $12.5 billion in the same time frame.
