Bluffton couple thought they were talking to Apple. The mistake cost them $7K, police say

A Bluffton couple thought they were fixing their phone, but ended up being scammed out of more than $7,000, according to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office report.

The incident occurred between 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. on August 14 in Brighton Oaks home, the report said. The victim had a broken phone so he and his girlfriend did an internet search for an Apple phone number to get it fixed, the report said.

The person they spoke with said Apple did not have the phone they wanted in stock so they would need to reserve it, the report said. In order to do that, they were told to buy a $100 Apple gift card and send Apple the information.

The person on the phone later said the gift card wasn’t valid and told the couple to buy two $500 gift cards, the report said. They did and gave him the information. They were again told the gift cards were not valid. the report said.

The couple repeated this process until they’d bought 14 gift cards from three different stores totaling $7,100, the report said.

The following morning, the victim got a phone call saying Apple wanted to refund his debit card, the report said. The victim did not give the caller any debit card information. When he checked the balances on all of the gift cards, he discovered the money had been taken, the report said.