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Officer confronts scammer targeting elderly woman
The elderly woman was on the phone with the scammer just moments away from sending $40,000. That's when an officer figured out what was happening, took the phone from her and let the scammer have it.
WHITE SETTLEMENT, Texas - A good Samaritan's 911 call and quick action by a North Texas police sergeant stopped a scammer from getting his hands on thousands of dollars.
Body camera footage provided by White Settlement police shows the actions taken to keep the victim from losing money. She told the sergeant someone from her bank's security team needed her to deposit her cash into a Bitcoin ATM.
Police say the scammer had been calling this elderly woman all week, threatening her and convincing her to send the money.
The scammer then set up an Uber to come pick the victim up from her retirement community and take her to a bank. She withdrew $40,000 and then was forced to go make the transaction.
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RAW: Police sergeant confronts scammer on phone
A good Samaritan's 911 call and quick action by a North Texas police sergeant stopped a scammer from getting his hands on thousands of dollars. The officers body cam captured his conversation with the scammer.
White Settlement Police Sgt. James Stewart stepped in to stop an elderly woman in her 80s from sending tens of thousands of dollars to man claiming he was with Chase Bank.
"You still haven’t got her name right, you freaking moron," he told the scammer.
"Yeah, I was pretty curt and mean. I was irritated not just as a police officer but as a human being," Stewart told FOX 4.
However, the first person to take notice was Myndi Jordan. She stopped by the Chevron off I-30 and Cherry Lane Thursday for gas and cash. She says the woman still had wads of hundred-dollar bills in her purse. So she called 911.
"I noticed an elderly lady feeding thousands of dollars into the cryptocurrency machine. And the people on the phone sound like foreigners, and they are Facetiming to make sure she is putting the money in the machine," Jordan told 911.
"Can you go get her to stop?" the dispatcher asked.
"I tried. She said she’s trying to correct the mistake that somebody else made," Jordan said. "I just don’t… it’s so bad."
Jordan waited for Sgt. Stewart to arrive on scene. He told the woman to stop inserting money and took the phone.
The male voice on the other end continued to say he’s a Chase Bank security team member.
"Let me speak to the customer," the man on the phone said.
"No, you are not going to speak to the customer anymore. You have spoken to the customer enough," the sergeant told the man.
"She never hit the submit button," Stewart explained. "He kept saying, ‘Hit the ‘I’m done’ button.’ If she did that, the money would’ve been gone."
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Jordan called the number on the Bitcoin machine to file a fraud report.
The woman will get her $23,000 back.
"It just could’ve been so different," Jordan said. "I’m so thankful to God that it ended happily for her, and she can get her stuff back."
Sgt. Stewart says he still doesn’t know where the man on the phone lives. There’s no way to track it or really conduct any investigation. He's just glad the woman didn't click the submit button because then the money would be gone for good.