CLIVE, Iowa — Clive resident Naomi Bloom was awoken last Friday by a phone call from an unknown number.
Bloom was told she had been subpoenaed to be an expert witness in a federal case, and was threatened with criminal action for not showing up.
“That felt ostensibly possible to me because I’ve been called as an expert witness before,” said Bloom, a clinical social worker and therapist.
Two men were on the other line, claiming to be detectives with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. They knew everything about Bloom, from her profession to the number of children she had.
Demanding thousands of dollars of so-called bond money, Bloom frantically got out of bed and obeyed the demands of the callers.
But it was all a lie.
Bloom was the target of a careful, thought-out AI scam designed cheat her out of her own money.
“The call came from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office,” Bloom said.
Scammers, however, are able to spoof phone numbers to appear as legitimate contacts when calling someone.
The call was found to be an imposter scam, the most reported fraud category in Iowa, according to the FTC. These scams are now using AI software to mimic the voices of others and push victims into a panic.
“You have these scammers that want to keep you off-guard, unbalanced, scared,” said Clive PD Detective Maurio Coleman, who has been investigating the case alongside Polk County sheriffs.
Bloom was told by the scammers to go to her bank and withdraw cash - $5,100, to be exact.
With the scammers still on the phone, she went to a Bitcoin Depot ATM machine in Des Moines and began feeding in the cash.
When Bloom pushed back, she was met with threats.
“They started to threaten my children. And as a single mother, that’s really scary,” she said.
Money from her daughter’s college savings was down the drain.
In total, Bloom was swindled out of nearly $7,000 in a matter of hours.
Through the investigation, Detective Coleman discovered that Bloom’s money is now sitting in Nigeria. The bitcoin was traced to the country, but given that the money was sent abroad, Coleman says no way for authorities to get it back.
The Iowa Banker’s Association is working to help financial institutions and their customers fight AI scams.
Spokeswoman Tara Deering-Hansen told Local 5 that Iowa banks “are constantly keeping abreast of fraud trends and train their front-line staff on behavioral and financial red flags” that could indicate when a customer is being scammed.
Polk County Sheriff’s Office and Clive PD also shared that they will never ask you for money over the phone. If you receive a call from a potential scammer, they advise reporting it to law enforcement right away.