A kind woman was scammed out of $4k by a young boy who claimed to need help.
Shannon Fraser was walking her dog when a young boy, who she said looked around 12-years-old, told her he was lost and couldn't find his friends. He asked to borrow her cellphone since his was dead. He called his friend over speakerphone while also making two Venmo transfers from her account.
It wasn't until later that night that she noticed something was up. She received alerts from her bank for the two transactions. One for $1,800 and one for $2,000. Turns out the account that her money was transferred to was created 30 minutes prior to her meeting the young boy.
They're calling this the "new pickpocket."
Fraser told News Channel 8 in Florida, " Your first instinct is to help a kid. Without thinking, and hindsight is 20/20, I just handed him my phone.”
Venmo did credit all of her money back and they do suggest that people using the app enable touch ID and pin and complete multi-factor authentication.