My wife was scammed

Was told they had a warrant for her arrest. Withdrew $17,000 and submitted it to some type of coin thing. I am so motherfricking mad I don't know what to do. She is normally not a fricking idiot but this is really hard to take.

My next door neighbor is an FBI agent and he basically said the money is gone. If I had a gun I would shoot these scam artists motherfrickers.

This is the whole story. You can believe it or not. It’s still hard for me to believe she was so gullible but what is done is done. There were about 50 red flags but it did happen. She cried every day for a week.

Update

I received two phone calls from the scammers before they called her. I didn’t answer the phone. They then called her while she was at the gym. It was a very polite and well spoken man with a southern accent. He called from a line that the caller ID said was the Jackson County Sheriff’s Dept. he identified himself as deputy (he gave a name of a real deputy). They knew our address, her work address and both of our social security numbers. They started out by telling her she had missed a jury duty and there was a warrant out for her arrest. They would be coming to her place of employment to arrest her. My wife has never been arrested or in trouble with the law so she freaked out at the thought of being arrested at her job.

The guy then said that since she was unaware of the jury duty that she would be given a chance to clear up the issue. They needed her to withdraw $7,000.14 and go deposit it in Gulfport at a coin star. If she did this it would print out a ticket and she could bring it to the courthouse and they would give her a certified check for the full amount. If she didn’t bring this receipt with her she would be arrested.

She told him several times that she needed to call me. He kept telling her that if she told anyone else that she would forfeit the money and it would turn into a fine and something about a gag order. (fricking stupid I know)

She goes to the Ocean Springs branch of M&M bank while still on the phone. They said if she hung up she would not be able to do this deal and would be arrested. She drove to Gulfport and deposited the money into a CoinStar. I have the receipt. Once it was complete they told her that they had another officer that needed to speak with her. There were walkie talkie sounds going in the background. The second officer said they were unaware of other toll road fines she had and the amount was actually $17,000 not $7,000. She then drove to a second M&M location on Washington Ave that was closer to the Gulfport.

She took out $10,000 and deposited it into a Bitcoin Depot. They then told her that since it was two transactions it didn’t go through and they needed another $17,000. She then asked what his badge number was again and he said “Why do you want to know that?” She now knew it was a scam and was hysterical and in tears. She put the phone on mute and drove to the sheriff’s dept on Washington Ave. She walked in a told them you may have to arrest me but I don’t care and told them what was happening.
They put a deputy on the phone and asked who he was and he hung up.

She called me and told me what was happening. I didn’t believe it so she put the deputy on the phone. I hung up and called the Jackson county sheriffs dept and told them I had just had a scammer call me and tell me my wife was at the sheriffs dept. She said what is her name and I told them. They confirmed she was there and that was my oh frick moment.

The sheriffs dept told us we had to file a report with the Ocean Springs police dept. I met her there and filed a report. When we left the pd I called my neighbor who is an FBI cyber security expert. He came over and took all of the info down including the receipts for the bitcoin and coinstar transactions. He said he would look into it but the money was pretty much gone. He advised they we check all of our accounts and credit card statements because they had all of our info including SSN.

We did check everything and found 3 small charges on our Amazon account. Three books that we did not buy. We canceled all cards and put a lock on all three credit bureaus. We changes all passwords and filed an IC3.gov report.

I knew it wouldn’t do any good because I she took the money out of the bank but I called my homeowners insurance agent because he is a friend. He said because there was possible identity theft that we could file a claim. You can take up to 5 single days over 5 weeks off from work to deal with the identity theft. Max payout was $1,000 a day. They also would pay for attorney fees or a a LifeLock type account. We filed with the insurance company. I don’t know if we will get anything but I filed just in case.

I went to the M&M bank fraud dept lady and they apoligized for letting her get that amount of money in such a short amount of time. She said even with it being two separate locations it should have been caught. They said since she took the money out there was nothing they could do. She said they had three other similar cases that week so they were going to put up signs warning people about scammers and being asked to get out money on the phone.

That is the story. You can believe it or not. I wish I was making it up. It still makes me fricking pissed every time I think about it but ther is nothing that can be done. Talk to your family members and let them know no one will call and ask for money over the phone. No one will tell you you cant speak to your spouse etc.

Be safe.