A Saskatoon man is looking at a maxed-out credit card following a phone-scammer who convinced him hackers were taking over his laptop.

“Sounded legitimate,” said 78-year-old Gord Upton. He was cold-called by a scammer, who made him believe he had been hacked and convinced him to provide remote access to his computer.

The caller then told Upton there were five hackers on his laptop, and the only solution was to pay off these hackers with gift cards.

“He said to get rid of the hackers, he would like to put $1,000 into my bank account … ‘We’d like you to take those thousand dollars and go buy two $500 Wal-Mart gift cards and we’ll use these gift cards to get rid of the hackers,’ and he didn’t explain how,” Upton said.

The caller was adamant, Upton said, instructing him not to hang up the phone call, and to not tell anyone. Stoked with fear, Upton obliged. He said he spent five hours on the phone, driving to and from Wal-Mart, purchasing one round of gift cards, only to be told they wouldn’t work and the caller demanded two $500 GooglePlay cards.

“They phoned back the next day saying they found two more hackers and I needed to buy two more $500 GooglePlay gift cards. Now I’m in for $3,000,” Upton said, adding he knew he was being scammed at this point.

“I finally said, ‘You’re a thief, you’ve taken my money and you’re the lowest kind of human being there is. You do this to older people like me who are gullible and afraid that what you’re saying it true, you take their money and leave them with nothing, don’t be calling back here.”

Upton said a quick online search of the phone number brought up several comments linking the number to an ongoing scam.

Sharing his story with his peers, Upton urges everyone to be cautious when an unknown caller phones and promptly asks you to shell out money.

“Now I’m not answering any calls that don’t have a name on them and that’s it,” Upton said. “If people want to talk to me they’re going to have to tell me who they are before I talk to them.”

Police warn phone-scammers are getting sophisticated

The Saskatoon Police Service said fraudsters will often pose a situation or a need that the victim was not aware of before the contact is made, such as an issue with the home computer. They will make themselves out to be expert, legitimate, and/or persons in authority in order to gain the trust of the victim. The scammers will oten claim to be associated with a current legitimate business or societal trend that the victim is likely to be aware of.

Police add legitimate businesses would not communicate this way and would not request payment via gift cards of any kind. Members of the public looking for tech support should contact a company they know and trust.