Bea Brossart wishes she would have paused for a moment.
Instead, the 87-year-old woman lost $5,000 to a scammer.
Late last week she was on her laptop when it suddenly crashed, she told Global News.
She said she saw flashing lights and a message telling her that her finances were at risk. It said she should call a number it provided.
Brossart trades stocks throughout the day and sells them before markets close, a practice known as day trading. She was worried that money was at risk.
She called the number. She learned she was speaking to someone who said their name was Johnathon and he said he was calling from California.
“Apparently, I was being charged $6,000 for a dating service of some kind,” she told Global News.
“So, he said, ‘Well, we have to balance that with gift cards.”
Brossart spent the next 10 hours on the phone with the scammer, driving around Saskatoon. She visited multiple locations of stores like Sephora, Staples and Wal-Mart and bought many different gift cards. She was directed to buy Google Play, Steam and Sephora cards most.
She was on the phone with scammer the whole time. He told her not to speak to anyone about what was going on.
She usually purchased the cards worth $50, though the person on the phone kept pushing her to buy cards worth more.
“The Bay would give me…
