OTTAWA COUNTY, Mich. — Financial scams happen all too often. One Ottawa County man heard the stories, but still, he became a victim after losing $23,000.
Tom Vruggink is well-known in the Hudsonville community. He led the high school softball team to a state championship. He says it's that kind of spotlight that made it easier for him to become a victim.
"I am sitting in my own house, and I'm going to be ushered out the front door by Ottawa County police in handcuffs with FOX 17 at the end of the driveway with a camera," Vruggink said.
The softball coach's mind was racing after a warning flashed on his computer.
"All of a sudden, big thing came on the screen that says, 'This is a fraud alert from Apple security,'" Vruggink added.
He called the number listed, and within moments, someone picked up and started talking.
"'It looks like you have you okay'ed withdrawal of $23,000 this morning,'" Vruggink explained. "He said, 'It looks like down at the bottom of this page here, those withdrawals that you okay'ed.' I said, 'Yeah, what were they for?' He said, 'Well, there's three things: gambling, pornography and kiddie porn,'" Vruggink said.
He says none of that was true, but he wanted the problem to disappear quickly.
"'He said, 'Okay, go in the bank. Don't tell it... talk to anybody. The teller is going to ask you, "What do you need $23,000 for?" Just tell them you're going on a family trip,'" Vruggink said.
That family trip was to a nearby ATM.
"He tells me what to do, and I put $23,000 into that Bitcoin machine, one hundred-dollar bill at a time. It took me about 35 to 45 minutes. He said, 'Now, when you're all done putting that money in, when the ... screen is going to be the Bitcoin deposit slip, take a picture of that and then send that to me,'" Vruggink said.
Unfortunately, Vruggink isn't the only one to get scammed in Ottawa County.
"I'm carrying a caseload of about 40, and 38 of those are fraud-related from either false pretenses or money being wired out or checks being written," Ottawa County Detective Joe Monger said. "The common scams we're seeing are false-pretense scams related to romance scams, grandchildren, distress scams, social media scams, technology scams with your cell phones, your computers that are in need of technical assistance."
The detective says AI is adding a whole other layer to these scams.
"The scammers are working harder not to be detected by us, which makes us have to work that much harder to find them," Monger said.
The scammers who got Vruggink are still out there.
"I know a lot of people that'll be watching this are probably saying, 'Oh my God, what an idiot he is. How can he fall for all that?' But you really don't know until you're in that position and they know exactly what they're doing," Vruggink said.
Looking back, this is what Vruggink would have done differently and hopes others heed his advice.
"I would tell myself or anybody that's listening to this, never do anything like this without calling someone, a friend or a relative, and saying, 'What do you think?' Because as soon as I started bouncing this thing off from people, I realized that it wasn't true," Vruggink said.
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