Raleigh woman says scammers stole $75,000 of her life savings
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- A Raleigh woman is speaking out after she says scammers tricked her out of $75,000.
Bettilyn Smyth said the ordeal began after she noticed two unfamiliar transactions on her bank account.
"I looked at it and thought, why? Why is there a charge on here?" Smyth said.
She said she called what she believed was customer support, but it was actually a scammer. The person on the phone told Smyth her accounts were being targeted.
"You have two hackers, one from Ohio, one from North Dakota. They're very good. I can stop one, but I can't stop the other. We need to check your accounts to make sure they haven't accessed them," Smyth said she was told.
Smyth said she was instructed to download an app that gave the scammer remote access to her phone.
"They said if I didn't wire out a certain amount of money, the hacker would have access to my account," she said.
Smyth said the scammer directed her to wire money and even told her what to say to her bank.
"They told me to say it was a loan to the person and that the person would give me my money back," Smyth said. "So stupidly, I told them that I knew the person, which I didn't."
Records show $25,000 was wired from one of Smyth's accounts. The scammer then targeted another bank account and directed her to wire more money from that account. Smyth said she wired an additional $50,000.
After sending the money, Smyth said something didn't feel right.
"I just had that feeling in the pit of my stomach," she said.
She hung up and contacted her banks in an attempt to stop the transactions, but it was too late. The $75,000 was gone.
ABC11 reached out to both banks but did not receive a response. Smyth said both banks told her they could not recover the money.
Smyth filed a police report, and a detective is now investigating. She said she was told not to expect to get the money back.
