Rochester woman falls victim to email scam

(ABC 6 News) — Police said the woman got an email from her "boss" to go purchase eBay gift cards. After buying $1,800 worth of gift cards, the woman learned it was all a scam.

Rochester Police Captain Casey Moilanen said the 44-year-old woman works at a place where they often buy gift cards for people who need them, so she didn’t think the request from her boss was suspicious.

The first email instructed her to purchase $1,000 worth of eBay gift cards and then take a picture of the codes and email them back. Once she did that, she got another email telling her to buy $800 more. After she did that, she got a third email instructing her to buy $600 more. At that point she called her boss to confirm the amounts and how she was going to be reimbursed, and that’s when her boss told her she didn’t send any emails.

The emails came from an email address that does not belong to the woman’s boss, however she said her boss’s name was mentioned in the emails.