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An 80-year-old Rancho Cucamonga man was swindled out of thousands of dollars after mistakenly calling a wrong number, spurring a warning on Wednesday from local police about phone scams.
The victim was seeking to cancel a Best Buy computer service subscription when he found what he thought to be the company’s number on the internet and dialed it, according to the Rancho Cucamonga Police Department.
He was told by a person posing as a Best Buy representative that in order to cancel the service, he’d have to purchase roughly $10,000 in Apple gift cards, according to a news release from the Police Department.
The man complied and bought the gift cards. Then he provided the numbers on the back of them to the fake Best Buy representative.
Eventually, the victim realized he had called a fraudulent phone number. But it was too late to stop the scam at that point because the gift cards had already been redeemed, according to the news release.
The man called law enforcement on Saturday to report the scam.
According to police, scammers “use many different scenarios” to defraud unsuspecting citizens.
“Suspects may call, falsely represent themselves, and threaten to take people to jail. They may say they are with the IRS and threaten the victim claiming they owe money or they…
