ORLANDO, Fla. – A retired Florida couple fell victim to a fake Spectrum-Target “promotion” that promised just $79.99 a month for three years following a one-time payment of $395 in Target gift cards.
Darlene Burket, of Howey-In-The-Hills, told News 6 that the email message from Spectrum Promotional seemed legitimate and included a phone number.
In the end, the couple lost $2,000 because the conmen told them the gift cards “weren’t working.”
“Two-thousand dollars to a lot of people may not seem like a lot of money,” Burket said. “But it’s a lot to me, to us.”
News 6 contacted Spectrum’s corporate office to determine if there is a pattern of these Target-Spectrum scams.
In an email to News 6, Director of Communications Joe Durkin wrote, in part, ”Our website has had this specific scam warning, among others. Unfortunately, this customer is a victim of a money scam and Spectrum will never ask for gift cards as a form of payment.”
Burket told News 6 that the email that appeared to be from Spectrum’s parent company, Charter Communications, and was convincing because it included her full name and home address.
Burket said that she and her husband were paying $230 a month for their cable bill and the deal would have helped them because they are on a fixed income.
The former New England resident told News 6 she thought the $395 gift card was “how they were paying Spectrum.”
“But they kept telling us they (the gift cards) were no good and I had to go get another one,” she recalled. “They told us go to Walgreens, go to Publix, wherever they sell the gift cards, which we did. I think people should definitely know about this.”
For more information about the Spectrum-Target imposter scheme, go to spectrum.net/support/general/scam-and-fraud-alerts.
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