July 26, 2023 Submitted by the Town of Hingham
A 77 year old resident fell victim to a phone scam in which he was instructed to purchase several gift cards at several stores.
On July 21, 2023 the resident told Officers he received a call the day before from a man claiming to be PayPal. The man told the resident their was an issue with his PayPal account. He told the resident in order to fix it he would need to visit various Walgreens stores and purchase $700 worth of gift cards. The resident then give the gift cards numbers to the man and they were immediately used.
As a reminder, no company, no government agency or utility will ever call requesting you purchase gift cards as a form or payment. We have seen these scams numerous times over the years where residents purchase gift cards to pay a the IRS, electric bill, to post bail, remove a computer virus, etc. ### Contact P.I.O. Lt. Steven Dearth.