Central Texas woman scammed out of hundreds of dollars trying to buy PS5

WACO, Texas (KWTX) -A Central Texas woman thought she was walking away with a steal of a deal and is now left empty-handed.

Cassandra Moll, of Waco, wanted to get her hands on a PlayStation 5 for her husband, and a scammer took advantage.

“There were some posts where people would take pictures of their PlayStation and say I just received mine from direct consoles and he’s legit,” Moll said.

“He only charges slightly above retail.”

She reached out to the Twitter account thinking this was her chance and, after a short conversation, he asked for $550.

“He said he only accepts Zelle, Cash App, and Apple Pay and those are the three apps that don’t protect you from fraud,” Moll said.

Anxious to get her husband a great gift, she asked to use Paypal but ended up paying on Zelle. It’s a red flag she says she shouldn’t have ignored.

“As soon as she received my money, he said that he would send me a confirmation email and a tracking number,” Moll said.

“That never happened.”

She continued to contact him day after day but then she was blocked.

“It’s just disappointing that all we want to do is find a good gift for our family members and he’s just out there scamming people,” Moll said.

Others commented they have been scammed from the same page.

The Better Business Bureau says they are seeing these types of scams more and more.

“We are seeing a tremendous increase in everything from online shopping scams to unsolicited offers coming at our doorstep, on our phones, in our email inboxes,” Jason Meza with Better Business Bureau serving the Heart of Texas said.

Meza says some things that can help are only using protected forms of payment and not cash apps or gift cards, making sure it’s a secure website, and being warry if it’s a product you can’t find somewhere else.

It is always recommended you report anything suspicious as well.

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