BEAUMONT, Texas — Cyber Monday is the busiest online shopping day of the year, and the Beaumont Police Department has a warning to Southeast Texans.
BPD says they've seen an increase in people reporting a PayPal scam.
Victims of this scam are reporting that at first they believe they are on the phone with PayPal's customer service, but instead are talking to a scammer.
Victims search for PayPal's customer service phone number online and the number seems legit at first. When they call the number they are connected to a scammer instead.
"Scams are very wide and just anything that you can imagine, someone will try to scam another person," said Beaumont Police PIO Haley Morrow.
Scammers creating fake phone numbers isn't new but now they are using new technology to scam unsuspecting victims.
"They have used bots to search that phone number so much, that it's pushing that to the top of the results," Morrow said.
That seemingly legit number at the top of your search results is actually a scammer in action and not a customer service representative.
"They're trying to call the customer service number for whatever. PayPal, Roku, Amazon," said Morrow. "They've actually convinced our victims to download an app on their phone, or their computer. That is essentially allowing them to remote into their device and have access to everything on it."
This gives the scammers access to your money and personal information.
"Well they're going into the bank accounts and their making withdrawals. So of course it's the holidays. So no one wants to be out any money during this time. So it's important to pay attention to your bank account always," Morrow told 12News.
Some Southeast Texans have already fallen victim to this scam, according to BPD.
"I know we've had a couple recently, three or four in the last few weeks," said Morrow.
Luckily, there are ways to avoid this happening to you.
Instead of using a search engine go directly to the company's website for their number.
"Speaking with the detective this was new to me. Because I am somebody who uses Google a lot to search for numbers and things like that. So it's definitely an eye opener. We want to get the message out to the community and just have them be aware of it, and just pay attention," Morrow said.
The victims of this scam are still trying to get their money back from their banks.
Police are asking that you share this scam alert with your family and friends because any business or company's phone number could be compromised by scammers.
If you've been scammed contact the police.
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This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.
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