Hackers tend to target people who don’t know much about computers so they can scam them into handing over thousands of dollars. One man in Florida was about to give the fraudsters $14,000 in Lowe’s gift cards after his computer and phones were hacked. Fortunately, his wife made an urgent phone call to police, who quickly located the man right before he did what the hackers told him to do.
Florida man was told to purchase $14,000 in Lowe’s gift cards
On August 27 at around 3:20 p.m., two deputies approached a man inside a vehicle parked in front of a Lowe’s parking lot in an effort to stop a scam in progress, as seen on bodycam footage posted by the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office on its official Facebook page.
Police received a call from the man’s wife who was rightfully suspicious of the people he was talking to on the phone. When deputies arrived on the scene, they spot the man still speaking with a potential scammer and told the man to hang up. However, he was in such distress that it took several commands by police before he complied.
One deputy tells the man that his wife called them, prompting him to say that he told her not to. When asked to tell the full story, he says his computer was hacked that morning and that he spoke with a Microsoft representative to fix it. The man explains that someone had taken $14,000 out of his account and that another rep from his bank is telling him that he has only one hour to purchase gift cards from Lowe’s to recover that money.
That’s when the police stops him and tells him that this was outright fraud. “That’s another scam,” one deputy says. “That’s why I told you to hang up. They were about to get way more money out of you.”
“Everything they told you, that was a lie,” he continued. “You are not the first person this has happened to you.”
“You positive?” the man replies in utter disbelief. “Wow.”
“We wouldn’t lead you astray,” the deputy replies. “That’s why we tried to get here so quick before you actually did give them all that money.”
They then explain to him that the so-called representatives from Microsoft and his bank were fraudsters and that he was talking to “scammers the whole way through.”
“Any time someone tells you to load up any kind of gift card, this that and the third, that’s all a scam,” one deputy says.
The post reports that this type of cyberfraud has become increasingly common in Nassau County with the number of cases having increased by 80% from 126 in 2021 to a 227 in 2025. So far in 2026, this number has already reached 174 cases. The sheriff’s office reminds people to be suspicious about any potential scammers who tells them to pay immediately or requests payment through gift cards, crypto, Cash App, or other unconventional methods.
