A resident of Meadowbridge Drive in Cartersville informed the Bartow County Sheriff’s Office on Saturday that he was scammed out of $12,000.

He advised he hired Vortex Computer Protection about three months ago to fix his computer for $300.

He said last Thursday, someone who identified himself as “John” called from Vortex and said there had been an issue and they would like to refund him his money.

He then gave “John” permission to take control of his computer in order to refund the money directly to his online bank account. “John” “accidentally” deposited $3,300 into the account. He told the victim to go purchase $3,000 of Google Play gift cards and call him back with the card numbers.

After doing so, he received another call from “John” saying some of the gift card numbers did not redeem. He was asked to purchase more gift cards and call him back. The victim did this three times at “John’s” request.

The next morning, the victim called his bank to check his account balances. $12,000 dollars had been removed from his savings account.

The bank explained to him that this was an online scam.