Watch Out – Florida Residents Beware Of This Online Scam

John McKendrick from West Palm Beach had his entire life savings wiped out by online scammers. McKendrick who is a U.S. Navy Veteran says he missed all the warnings signs of an online scam. It all started back in March when he spotted a weird charge on his credit card. He says he thought it was Norton Security Protection.

After googling the company, he found a number and called them. The person who answered the phone said that he needed remote access to his computer to check whether their software was actually installed. The person on the phone goes on to say that their software was not installed, but they found “hackers.” McKendrick says he was convinced that he need their expertise.

Turns out the person on the phone was the actual hacker for the online scam.

He told McKendrick that they would be putting $10K in his bank account to trigger the “hackers.” McKendrick was then instructed to withdraw $10K out of his bank account and put it in a bitcoin machine. He did this 10 times before catching on.

McKendrick discovered he was withdrawing his own money and now his life savings is gone. He is now out of $94K. McKendrick filed a police report and reached out to his bank. McKendrick says even if he does not get his money back, he’s hoping his situation can help someone else.

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One Florida Resident Made History Purchasing Lottery Ticket Worth $1.586B

• Illinois

  One lucky person in Illinois bought the winning Mega Millions ticket in July of 2022. They came forward after several weeks but their identity is unknown. They purchased the 5th largest jackpot prize totaling $1.337B.

• Maine

  A person in Maine won the 4th largest Jackpot in U.S. history.  The jackpot was estimated at $1.35 billion dollars. The drawing was on Jan 13th of this year and it was sold in Lebanon, Maine.

• South Carolina

   This was the third largest jackpot and it was a Mega Millions Prize worth $1.54B. The ticket was drawn in October of 2018.  The winner is from South Carolina but did not come forward until a year later. They chose to take their winnings in a one-time lump sum of $877,784,124 .

• Florida

  This was the second biggest Jackpot and it was split in three ways. This Powerball prize was $1.586B. It was sold in 2016 and there were three matching tickets.  The Melbourne Beach resident who won in Florida also had to split the prize with a California and Tennessee resident. Still not a bad deal though. With a three way split they would each get $528M.

• California

  This is the Largest Lottery Jackpot to date. It was a Powerball ticket that was sold in November of 2022. The city it was purchased in was Altadena! The ticket was worth $2.04B. According to Lottery officials, the ticket holder was the first lottery billionaire in the state of California.