Internet search almost causes Raleigh woman to lose hundreds of dollars

RALEIGH, North Carolina (WTVD) -- The quest to get a new email address almost had Kitty Hicks getting scammed out of hundreds of dollars. Kitty says she went to Google and typed in "new Yahoo email account." She clicked on the site that she thought was the official site.

The "official" site had a phone number listed, and Kitty says she was more comfortable talking on the phone instead of signing up online.

"I called them thinking there's no way anything bad can happen to me if I call them," explained Kitty.

The representative that Kitty spoke with said he needed access to her computer, and he walked Kitty through the steps to give him control over her computer. Kitty recalls, "Everything on my computer just went nuts. He was searching and going through this and that."

It was in searching through her computer; Kitty says the representative claimed that something was horribly wrong with her computer, and he needed to clean it up-for $699!

The representative informed Kitty she would need to give him access to her checking account to process the payment. Kitty did just as the representative told her so he could collect payment, and she thought all was good.

Luckily, once Kitty hung up the phone, a light bulb went off.

"I thought, oh my gosh it's a scam, I've been scammed," exclaimed Kitty.

Kitty called the bank and was able to stop payment on the check. Kitty couldn't believe that she fell for this scam so quickly, and she hopes others learn from it.

Kitty's piece of advice is, "Never let anybody into your computer, and don't trust things you google on the internet."

While Google is a wonderful tool, make sure you are clicking on the right link. Yahoo did not have anything to do with this, but, when Kitty Googled what she was looking for, the first site that popped up took her to this other site, claiming to offer computer help. In reality, they were no help at all; they just wanted her money.