‘Tearing me apart’: Man says he lost nearly $100K in job scam

INDIAN LAND, S.C. — A South Carolina man says he lost nearly $100,000 when someone offered him a job buying products from Apple.

Sergio Alcazar just turned 80. He’s retired and plays a lot of golf, but says he got an email offering him a job working from home. He thought it would be nice to fill time and make some extra money.

“They were looking for a purchasing person,” Alcazar told Action 9′s Jason Stoogenke. Someone to buy Apple products, and a lot of them, he said.

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“She sent me a huge list of materials they would need for me to buy. I mean huge,” he said. “And it was not only one of each. It was like 10 of each.”

Alcazar says the person told him to use his own credit card to ship the items to an address in China. There, the “company” would set up a bank account and pay off his credit card.

He says it did. Or so he thought, until a few days later.

“They reverted the charges. They came back,” he said.

In all, Alcazar says he spent about $96,000 buying product.

“I’ve been living with this in my mind every day since November, but what can I do? It’s tearing me apart,” he said.

Alcazar says he reported the crime, but doesn’t expect to see any of his money back.

“I’m an open-minded, kind of naïve guy, I guess,” he said.

As for his pay, Alcazar says the scammer sent him two checks, part for his salary and part for even more Apple products. But, by that time, he knew it was all fake.

Scammers are usually after your money or personal information. But it seems this scammer was after all those Apple products.

Alcazar doesn’t want others to end up in this same situation.

To avoid similar scams, Action 9 recommends:

Research the employer. Search the web. See if people posted warnings about the business.
Be suspicious if the employer expects you to use your ‘own’ money for work.
Watch out if someone sends you too much money, wants you to deposit it and wants you to send the extra elsewhere.

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