A Des Plaines man was scammed out of roughly $200,000 worth of bitcoin cryptocurrency in recent weeks, police said.
The thefts occurred in several transactions between Feb. 14 and March 4, police said.
The thief posed as a Federal Trade Commission representative over the telephone and in email to gain the 40-year-old victim’s confidence, police officer Katie Kozlowski said.
The scammer asked the victim to download a program to his laptop computer that provided access to the victim’s Coinbase account, Kozlowski said.
To avoid financial scams, Kozlowski urged people to be careful of any call or email from an unknown source.
“Never give out your personal information,” she said. “And if you receive a call from an unknown number, do not pick it up.”
Additionally, if someone calls claiming to be from an organization, hang up and call the group or company to verify the caller actually works there, police said.
Running the phone number of a suspicious caller through an internet search engine can reveal whether the number is being used by scammers, too, police said.
More of the department’s scam-prevention tips can be found online at bit.ly/41VpRNF.