(RoyalPatriot.com )- During the process of purchasing a home in Colorado, a former schoolteacher fell victim to a swindle that resulted in the loss of over $200,000 when hackers intercepted her email correspondences with legitimate dealers.
According to the report, when Vicki Ragle, 69, fell victim to con artists, she was using her life savings to purchase a home in Lakewood, Colorado, for herself and her daughter Sarah. The con artists deceived her into turning over the substantial cash.
It is not apparent how the cybercriminals were able to hack Ragle’s genuine email communications with her realtor, the lender, and the title company.
She dutifully paid the amount in full, and she didn’t find out about the fraud until a couple of days later when she and her daughter went to the title company to finalize the acquisition. The employees there informed them that they did not receive the money.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Lakewood Police Department have begun looking into the incident with the help of the FBI.
As her eyes filled with tears, Ragle told a local media outlet that she was 69 years old, broke, and homeless.
Vicki Ragle taught middle school for 42 years before finally quitting last July. Her whole nest egg went toward the down payment on the home. Furthermore, she had recently purchased furniture for the house.
According to the CBI, fraudsters would spoof or create a phony email account for a target in order to convince them to switch their real bank account to one they control.
An estimated $54 million was lost due to corporate email hacking in Colorado, where the FBI received hundreds of complaints last year.
A friend of the Ragles, Victoria Detlefs, has set up a GoFundMe to help them recover some of the money. As of the report, it has earned over $14,000 of the $200,000 goal.
A recent report by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation estimated that annual losses from email hacks were billions of dollars annually.
