An American expat who had been saving up to pay for her Australian visa lost $3,000 after making a simple mistake at Woolworths.
Melanie Albert, originally from Austin, Texas, received an email from her boss on her day off asking for her phone number so she could send her a WhatsApp message.
The email appeared to have been sent from her new job’s email address and contained her boss’s first and last name, news.com.au reported.
Ms Albert, who recently started working as an assistant manager at a popular Sydney restaurant, received a WhatsApp message just minutes after providing her number, asking how her day had been.
Ms Albert, who has lived in Sydney since 2019, wrote that it was her day off and she was going to do yoga.
The man she believed to be the owner of the restaurant group asked her to do him a favour and stop by a nearby Coles or Woolworths.
After replying that he was 10 minutes away from his local Woolworths store, his “boss” asked him to come over immediately and text him when he got there.
After messaging him that it had arrived, the WhatsApp sender asked him what denominations of Apple gift cards were for sale.
Melanie Albert, 34, was scammed and lost her savings, which she needed to apply for an Australian visa when her current visa expires in October.
The expat was tricked into believing that her new boss wanted a favor from her, but it was a scammer who wanted her to buy Apple gift cards (pictured is the WhatsApp message Ms. Albert received)
Once she sent the message with the information, he wrote: ‘Please buy one of the $500 and you will be refunded.’
After Ms. Albert brought the gift card, her “boss” told her to send him a photo of the activation code.
He then asked her to buy two more Apple gift cards.
Ms. Albert purchased the cards thinking she would get her money back.
But by this point, the American had already spent half of the savings she had set aside for her visa application.
With attorney fees, her visa will cost $11,000, but she must apply for it as her visa expires in October.
It was when the expat was asked to buy more cards again that she called the number in case she was being scammed.
But his ‘boss’ didn’t respond, instead sending messages that they were busy in ‘meetings’ and would refund his money ‘as soon as I was done here’.
Ms. Albert felt relieved and was happy to purchase more $100 and $200 cards, for a total of $1,500.
In total, $3,000 was spent at the checkout in a matter of minutes.
“I was like, ‘oh shit, this is all the money I have,’ but in my head I was getting reimbursed, so I was fine,” she recalled.
The woman received a WhatsApp message from a person she believed to be her boss. She was told to go to Coles or Woolworths and buy Apple gift cards and send them their activation codes (pictured, a Woolworths store)
Ms. Albert sent details of recent card purchases, only to be asked to purchase another $2000 worth of Apple gift cards.
When the assistant manager told her ‘boss’ she only had $91 left in her account, they sent her an emoji and stopped messaging the 34-year-old woman.
Panicking, she called her restaurant group operations manager, who confirmed her worst fears: she had been scammed.
It was then that she checked the original email again and this time noticed that the letter “e” in the word office was missing from the address, making the 34-year-old feel like “a huge idiot.”
“You always expect it to be an older person who falls into the trap. I was surprised that I didn’t realize it,” Albert said.
“What happened made me feel bad about myself… scammers are getting smarter.”
Although the American went to the police station to file a complaint that same day, she was told that the scammers could be from anywhere in the world.
The scammer told him that he needed to upload a picture of the gift card activation codes (pictured)
To make matters worse, her claim to recover the $3,000 from her bank was “unsuccessful” because she was the one who made the purchases at the store.
The deputy director has created a GoFundMe page to help recover part of their savings, which have so far raised almost $1,500.
He cannot currently afford to stay in Australia or return to the United States.
“The scammers managed to completely drain my debit and savings accounts,” he wrote.
‘Now that the scammers are taking everything I had, I’m back to rock bottom and have no idea what to do.
‘Right now, this (GoFundMe) is the only thing I can think of to help me get out of the darkest place I’ve ever been in.
‘I’m coming to you with my tail between my legs and tears in my eyes.’
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Woolworths for comment.
