A veteran journalist, who spent 22 years of her career anchoring news, became the center of a scam story herself after she was swindled out of a whopping $72,000.
“I feel dumb, that I should have been smarter about it. I am in a very vulnerable place,” said long-time KSEE 24 news anchor, Alex Delgado, according to a report from Your Central Valley.
Delgado received a dubious text claiming to be from the stock trading app, Robinhood back in March. The message said her account had recorded some suspicious activity and asked her to call on a number to report the incident.
Delgado didn’t think much of it as she was preparing for a trip and made the call to the number mentioned, which turned out to be the biggest mistake of her life.
“They said, ‘Not a problem, let me transfer you to the fraud department,’ so it was very legit. It sounded very legit,” Delgado said.
The fake representative on the call told her that her investment account was at risk as someone sitting in Asia, using an Android phone was trying to gain access.
“We need to move that money into a different account while we conduct our investigation,” the alleged fraudster told her.
Over the next two days, Delgado said the scammer guided her step-by-step to move the money over the phone. There were moments when she tried to get off the call, but the crook kept her hooked.
By the time she realized that thousands of dollars were wiped clean off her account, “it was too late.”
“If it can happen to me, and I am familiar with these, I covered it for the news, I hear about it all the time. It can happen to anyone,” the former news anchor said.
She tried to contact the legitimate Robinhood through their app but there was nothing they could do. Delgado has reported the fraud to multiple institutions but there is no sign of her money coming back anytime soon.
“Unfortunately, don’t trust anybody. Except your mother,” warned Delgado.
Fresno Police Detective Timothy Johnson advises people to watch out for red flags in initial interactions such as a manufactured sense of urgency or a caller refusing to end the conversation.
“Things are looking more and more official when it comes to email and text messages that look legitimately coming from financial institutions or private businesses,” Johnson said, reported by CBS47.
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