INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — A popular website is being used by some criminals to find their next victim.
Care.com offers help for people looking for babysitters, senior care, housekeepers, and more. Not everyone is using it for those purposes, however.
One college student reached out to FOX59 after being scammed out of thousands of dollars. The student doesn’t want to be identified. She said a woman named “Martha” found her profile and told her about the job description.
“Restock all their groceries weekly, clean floors, do their laundry, make the beds, clean windows,” the victim said.
She said “Martha” was moving to Bloomington with her family and needed someone to help set up her apartment.
“She mailed me a cashier’s check for $3,990 and I went and I put it into my checking account and it cleared and I was able to withdraw the money,” the student explained.
Then, the young woman was asked to buy iTunes gift cards. She said it sounded strange at first, but didn’t hesitate because it was Martha’s money, or so she thought.
“A week later, I had gotten a notification from my bank that they had taken the $3,990 out of my savings and put it into my checking and then taken it because the check had come through as a forged check,” she said.
The student was scammed out of thousands of dollars, but she’s not alone. Last year, the state attorney general’s office investigated dozens of cases of counterfeit checks cashed by victims in cases similar to this one. Attorney General Curtis Hill said scammers are becoming more and more sophisticated and technology savvy.
“They’re good at what they do. They’re practiced at what they do,” Hill said. He added, “they have technology on their side. They are very difficult to bring to justice.”
For a list of safety tips from Care.com, click here. If you’ve been a victim of a scam, click here to find out more from the Indiana Attorney General’s Office.
