Eleven dollars — that is all a 70-year-old woman has in her bank account until her Social Security check comes in. Can’t buy much with that. Then she gets a phone call, supposedly from the IRS, stating she owes $5,000 and the money is due now or her driver’s license will be taken away within the hour, and federal agents will come to arrest her. She is told that if she can come up with $3,000 within the hour, they will forgo the other $2,000.

She panics and follows the instructions — go to CVS and purchase $2,000 worth of iTune cards with her credit card. The scammers contacted her again for the other $1,000 and instructed her to go back to the CVS and do the same thing as before.

But this time, she stopped at the Lisbon Police station and while the scammer was on the phone, a police officer got in on the conversation. The scammer swore at the officer and when he identified himself as a police officer and that it was a scam the caller hung up.

The woman filed a police report, but now has a $2,000 credit card bill she cannot afford.

To top it off, when she got home she had a message on her phone saying “Ha, ha, ha — I just charged your credit card.”

How can people be so hurtful as to scam money from a struggling elderly person who can barely afford food? What has this world come to?

Phillip Webber, Lisbon