HINGHAM — An 85-year-old resident was scammed out of $10,500 after responding to a caller who claimed to be from “Apple Security,” police said.
The resident reported to police Monday that she had recently received a call from a person who said her Apple account had been hacked.
The scammer gave instructions on how to purchase specific gift cards to resolve the issue.
As instructed, she purchased $10,000 worth of Home Depot gift cards and $500 worth of Lowe’s gift cards and gave all the gift card numbers to the scammers.
Those gift cards are typically used immediately online.
This is a common scam with variations of “Windows Security” or “Internal Revenue Service” having been used in the past, according to Lt. Steven Dearth.
The woman’s family helped her notify her financial institutions and will monitor her accounts for future scams.
