REDWOOD CITY — Police on Thursday arrested a 22-year-old Fresno man they say tried to scam an elderly Redwood City woman.
The victim contacted police around 3 p.m. Wednesday after becoming suspicious that she was the target of a fraud scheme, the Redwood City Police Department said in a news release.
Police said the woman reported receiving messages on her iPhone that AppleCare had detected suspicious activity. She then spoke with people posing as support representatives, who told her there were fraudulent charges associated with her bank account.
The suspects instructed the woman to withdraw cash from her account and hand it over to a courier, who would come to her residence to collect the money, police said.
Police intervened at that point. They coordinated further communication with the suspects, as well as put together a plan to identify and apprehend the courier if one…
Identity theft is the “foundational” fraud upon which many other crimes are built. It involves the unauthorized acquisition and use of a person’s personal identifying information (PII), such as an ID number, Social Security number, or passport details.
- How it works: Fraudsters obtain PII through data breaches, mail theft, or “social engineering” (tricking people into revealing details). Once they have this data, they can open new bank accounts, apply for credit cards or loans, and even receive medical treatment under your name.
- Synthetic Identity Fraud: A sophisticated variation where criminals combine real and fabricated information to create a completely new, “synthetic” person. This is particularly difficult to detect because there is no single victim to report the suspicious activity initially.