COLUMBUS, GA (WTVM) - It started as a normal trip to the Dollar Store and turned into something much more an elderly woman in her. Out of fear of retaliation she did not want her identity revealed.
She told News Leader 9 that two women met her at a Macon Road Shopping Center and took her on a ride she would never forget.
"I said call the police, she said no they would take it and keep it, I said no they wouldn't call the police."
They would not call the police. Instead another woman came to the 86-year-old woman's car and got inside. She told her that she knew the manager inside of T-J Maxx on Macon Road and that he could help them keep the money they had found.
"She said he was real nice the manager and said he is a lawyer and something else and he can tell me what to do with it."
News Leader 9 spoke with the manager at T-J Maxx, who to our surprise was not a man at all. She referred to their cooperate office who didn't return our call.
According to one of the scammers the supposed "manager" agreed to help them. Each of the three women would have to produce $7,000 so that he could use that cash to trade with the money inside the bag. That was an attempt to get rid or hide serial numbers that could possibly be traced. This is where the scam became even more confusing for the victim.
The women traveled with one of the two scammers to her home and picked up her checkbook. They then went to her bank in Bradley Park to take out the $7,000 dollar, most of her life savings.
She gave the cash to the other women waiting at T-J Maxx. She then took the money inside the store to the supposed manager--lawyer. Then asked to come inside and talk with him.
"She said we would go in and there are pocketbooks on the right just go all the way to the back and there is a door, she said don't ask for him. I still didn't think anything about it because like I said I was brainwashed."
When she came out of the store the two women were gone along with her $7,000 in cash
