An elderly widow lost her entire life savings of £19.7k ($25k) to telephone scammers. <br /><br />Susan Guthrie, 76, was conned out of her money by fraudsters who posed as Microsoft employees and talked her into depositing the money into their account. <br /><br />They convinced her account had been hacked and unless she transferred the money, it was at risk of being stolen.<br /><br />Susan, of Mesa, Arizona, USA, said: "I felt credible about the scammers and I felt assured that they would take care of the problem. <br /><br />"Once I found out I was devastated. I felt really foolish."<br /><br />According to Susan's daughter Sarah-Lynn Guthrie, the scammers gained access to her mum's computer on February 5 after she clicked on a pop-up.<br /><br />The pop-up asked Susan to input her telephone number, allowing the scammers to call her.<br /><br />Once on the phone, Susan was told to transfer her life savings to them for safekeeping until the hackers could be stopped. <br /><br />She was asked to withdraw the money and deposit it using a Bitcoin ATM at a nearby shop. <br /><br />Sarah-Lynn, a freelance videographer, said: "There's this little bodega in her neighborhood with a crypto ATM. I can't believe it's legal. <br /><br />"She physically deposited $25K into the ATM. That 25k was all she had left to save her from small problems.<br /><br />"My parents lost everything in the 2008 crash and now she's stuck in a tiny apartment which she can barely afford with her social security. <br /><br />"What's really sick was that she was telling the scammers 'why would anyone steal from me, I'm just a little old lady all alone and poor' and they were empathizing with her."<br /><br />The scammers made sure Susan wouldn't call a relative or a friend for advice by telling her that the hackers would access the phone of anyone she called.<br /><br />Susan was only saved from their grip the following day after she told her physical therapist what had happened during an appointment.<br /><br />Susan's physical therapist is also a family friend and immediately alerted her daughter Sarah-Lynn, who went to find Susan.<br /><br />Horrifyingly, according to Sarah-Lynn, the scammers seemed to have "brainwashed" her mum.<br /><br />A video shows the moment Sarah-Lynn confronted her mum and realised that she had lost her entire saving pot to scammers. <br /><br />When Sarah-Lynn told her mum she was talking to criminals and not Microsoft, Susan almost refused to believe her.<br /><br />She even ignored Sarah for a while and pushed her daughter away in favour of the phoney Microsoft employees.<br /><br />Sarah said: "They [the scammers] are like hypnotists.<br /><br />"It 100% felt like I was talking to someone in a cult.<br /><br />"When I arrived she was on the phone with the scammers, still fully invested. <br /><br />"I kept trying to mute the call and she kept pulling the phone away.<br /><br />"She had already given them her life savings but in her head I just didn't understand."<br /><br />Despite Susan's disbelief, she agreed to go to the bank with Sarah-Lynn and speak to the branch manager.
