An elderly man has reported being scammed of approximately $7,000 over the course of a month.
A 72-year-old Bowling Green man on Dec. 20 reported a possible scam.
He advised Bowling Green police he had received a message on Instagram around Sept. 8, stating his name and asking him to respond.
The account came from user Victoria_pittman_2829291 and the user’s photo showed a female.
The man told police he initially ignored the request until Nov. 19, when he responded and the two continued to speak regularly. Eventually, Pittman asked the man to download the WhatsApp to communicate, according to the Bowling Green Police Division report.
On Dec. 3, he downloaded the WhatsApp and continued to communicate with Pittman using the phone number 551-239-3829. On Dec. 13, Pittman began asking for money, first for groceries, then for a plane ticket to Denver to visit her sister, and to help pay bills and pay off her car, according to the report.
During this time, he also bought a prepaid Mastercard, at her request, and took a picture of the card and sent it to her.
At one point, his credit card company closed his account and he had to begin purchasing Amazon gift cards to send a picture of them to Pittman, according to the report.
He told police as of Dec. 20, he had given Pittman between $6,000 and $7,000 and that he had made plans to pick up Pittman at her home in Beckley, West Virginia, in early January.
He stated he wanted the person who is responsible for scamming his money to be prosecuted if they can be identified. The officer advised that most times these types of scams are conducted from another country and are difficult to locate or prosecute.
The report was forwarded to the BGPD detective bureau.
