Doorbell Camera Captures Senior Widow Falling Victim to Scammers

A doorbell camera has captured the moment a trusting elderly widow was ruthlessly scammed out of her life savings.

A woman from North Carolina, preferring to remain unnamed, unfortunately fell victim to a scam where she was deceived into withdrawing $17,500 in cash to give to a repeat scam artist who arrived at her home.

The money was supposed to help pay off the woman’s medical bills following cancer treatment last year. 

Now, she has learned she will likely never get it back. 

‘It never occurred to me that there was going to be an evil person come into my life,’ the woman said. 

The ruthless scam began when the woman tried to log in to her online banking, but found she couldn’t access her accounts. 

So she called a number she had saved as the bank in her contacts.

She received a call where the person on the other end claimed that her accounts had been frozen due to a questionable PayPal transaction from the previous day. She was then directed to an alleged PayPal fraud department.

After hanging up because the call quality was bad, the lady dialed a number she found online. 

During this phone call, she was informed that she needed to cover an $82 fee, which they promised would be reimbursed. However, this required her to adhere to the caller’s instructions, which involved installing certain downloads on her computer.

‘I typed $82.00, and I immediately looked up to the screen and it says, $18,000, and then it goes, accept, accept, accept, just like that,’ she told ABC 11.

The woman told the outlet she was panicking and said to the caller: ‘That’s not what I typed in, that’s a mistake.’

What she didn’t know at the time was that the man had manipulated her into giving him access to her computer and that he had transferred $18,000 from her savings to her checking account.

The man instructed her to go to the bank and retrieve the cash. 

While she was skeptical, a letter marked with Bank of America’s official logo came out of her printer, stating there was a serious matter concerning her account. 

The letter told her there had been tax issues, that her online transfers had been blocked by the IRS and that she must refrain from discussing the transaction. 

‘He kept saying, don’t hang up on me,’ she said.

Her caller ID shows the call lasted over four hours. 

The woman did as she was told and drove to the bank and withdrew $17,5000, as the man told her she could keep the extra $500 ‘for her troubles’.

When she withdrew the huge sum of cash, the bank manager questioned her if she was being harassed.

She told the bank manager she was not and signed a document saying she was withdrawing the money under her own free will.

Upon arriving home with the cash, another notice appeared from her printer thanking her for ‘returning’ the money to PayPal, and notifying her that ‘Mr. Jack’ would be there shortly to collect the cash.

Her doorbell camera caught the moment a man arrived at her house to pick up the cash.

The woman is seen opening her door and innocently handing over $17,500 in cash.

Thinking the day’s drama was over, she called her daughters to tell them about the ordeal.

‘Mom, you’ve been scammed,’ she said her daughter told her. 

Realizing she had been duped, the woman contacted the police and quickly learned she was far from the only victim to have fallen foul of the scam.

She saw the mugshot of Linghui Zheng and immediately said she recognized him as the man who came to her door to collect the cash. 

Zheng is charged with obtaining property under false pretenses in her case.

He and an accomplice are also facing charges in Person, Durham, and Granville counties of obtaining property under false pretenses, accessing computers and felony conspiracy. 

Zheng and his accomplice are accused of scamming people out of around $400,000.

Multiple agencies including NC SBI and the Department of Homeland Security are working to identify more victims and suspects.

The woman said she was speaking out to warn others about the sick scams. 

‘What I want people to know is, you know, if just because you’re tired that they don’t let you, don’t let your defenses down,’ she said.

Investigators have told her it’s unlikely she will get her money back, as much of it was already gone by the time the suspects were arrested. 

The suspects are behind bars at the Person County Detention Center.