ATLANTA (CBS46) — A Kennesaw couple building their retirement home in the North Georgia mountains were recently scammed out of $17K. Better Call Harry explains how it happened. Craig Seabolt and his wife didn’t think twice about an email that turned out to be a scam.
The couple are building a lakefront retirement home in Blairsville. Not long after groundbreaking, the first $17,000 payment was due. The Seabolts mailed a check to their builder. (trilogymedicalcenter) A few days later they received an email that said that the bank was having a problem processing the check. The email contained wire instructions.
Seabolt’s wife sent the money without asking any questions because she believed it came from their builder. A month later when the scammers made another wire request, Seabolt started asking questions.
The FBI was able to track the wire transfer to St. Petersburg, Russia, but the money is gone.
There were clues in the emails, including a grammatical error and spelling error.
The builder was able to fix their account and the home will be done early next year. However, the Seabolts want others to know that if you receive an email that appear to be from someone you know but they ask for something unusual, you should check it out before taking action.
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