OCALA, Fla. — The city of Ocala says it has recovered the three-quarters of a million dollars it lost when an employee fell for a phishing scam.
According to police records, the scammer convinced a city worker to change a bank routing number during an online conversation. After that, the city found out that the money went to a fraudulent bank account, and that's when an effort was made to stop the transaction.
“When we were working with the bank fraud department, they actually tracked and processed where the funds were being traveled or moved, and through that process they were actually able to recover almost all of our funds,” said spokesperson Ashley Dobbs.
The city says it was still short about $25,000 but says its insurance paid that off, minus a $5,000 deductible.
