Owasso woman scammed out of hundreds online: How to protect yourself

An Owasso woman lost control of her Facebook account and hundreds of dollars after falling victim to a tech support scam.

News On 6 spoke with both the victim and a cybersecurity expert about how the scam worked and how others can avoid the same trap.

Q: How did the scam start?

Cynthia Tyler said she noticed something was wrong when friends started asking about items she supposedly had for sale on Facebook.

"I start getting calls and texts from my friends inquiring about things that I have on Facebook for sale, which I'm confused because I don't have anything on Facebook for sale," she said.

She realized someone had gained access to her account and was posting fake listings on Facebook Marketplace.

Q: What did she do next?

After she tried to reset her password, her boyfriend Googled a number for Facebook support. That search led them to a scammer.

The scammer convinced Cynthia to download an app that gave them access to her phone and accounts. Then they asked her to buy gift cards.

"He said that it wasn't really coming out of my account, that it was just something they had to do in order to get access to my accounts," she said.

Q: What happened after she realized it was a scam?

Cynthia eventually caught on and ended the call. She canceled her credit cards, but the scammer still controls her Facebook account and continues posting bogus ads.

Q: How common are scams like this?

Tyler Moore, a cybersecurity professor at the University of Tulsa, says these scams are very common, and gift cards are a big red flag.

"Eventually they get to a ruse of asking for someone to pay gift cards, which is a red flag, because gift cards are a way to cash out money, right in a way that's very hard to reverse," said Moore.

Q: Why are these scams so hard to track down?

Moore says many of the scammers aren’t even in the U.S.

"So many of the attackers who are carrying this out, they won't be in Owasso, they won't be in the United States, they're going to be in a different country altogether, right? And so that becomes, makes enforcement very hard," said Moore.

Cynthia has reported the crime to the Owasso Police Department and the FBI, but says there's little they can do.

Q: How can people protect themselves?

Key tips from Tyler Moore:

1. Be suspicious if someone contacts you claiming to be tech support.
2. "You shouldn't be expecting any kind of communication about tech support to come from the company to you."
3. Don’t trust phone numbers you find on Google.
4. "Attackers know this... they actually find a way to pollute the Google search results."
5. Only contact companies through their official apps or websites.
6. "The best thing you can do is make that contact through the app itself."
7. Never send gift cards, wire transfers, or cryptocurrency; those are all signs of a scam.

Q: What if your account has already been hacked?

Moore says it can be very hard to get it back once it’s taken over, especially because companies like Facebook may not be able to tell the difference between the scammer and the real account owner.

Reminder: No one legitimate will ever ask you to buy gift cards, send them Bitcoin or a money transfer. And people should never Google a number for customer service to any company. Use a number or email from a bill you have or go directly through the company's app.