“They tricked me”: This woman lost $176K after accepting a remote job she thought was with Facebook

ABC7 News Bay Area reporter Stephanie Sierra says a Brentwood woman thought she had landed a remote job with Facebook.

Instead, Sierra reports, she watched her life savings drain away in about a month and a half. The woman, Dawn Furseth, told Sierra the loss still makes her angry.

“It just infuriated me,” Furseth said in Sierra’s report.

Then Sierra asked the blunt question that makes the whole story go quiet for a second.

“How much money did you lose?” Sierra asked.

“$176,000,” Furseth answered.

That number is so big it doesn’t sound real at first.

But Sierra’s reporting makes it clear this wasn’t a quick pickpocket situation. It was a long, carefully staged trap that felt like a job, sounded like a job, and even looked like a job—right up until it didn’t.

And the scariest part is how normal it begins.

Why The “Remote Job” Pitch Worked So Well

Stephanie Sierra says Furseth is 60 years old and lives in Brentwood.

Furseth had just finished contract work for a Bay Area software company, and Sierra reports she started looking for something new around October.

That timing matters because people job-hunt when they’re trying to stay afloat. They’re not always desperate, but they are focused. They’re open to options. They’re watching their inbox.

Furseth told Sierra she started getting the kind of email pitch many people have seen.

“You get these emails that say, ‘Hey, we’ve got part-time job for you, remote situation…’” Furseth explained.

She told Sierra it sounded reasonable for where she was in life at that moment.

That’s the hook. Not a dramatic threat. Not a cartoon villain. Just a message that whispers, This could work. This could help.

Stephanie Sierra also says she’s seeing more cases where scammers use new AI tools to make these fake job setups sound polished and convincing.

The words are smoother now. The tone is professional. The grammar is tighter. And when someone is tired of searching, “professional” is often enough to lower your guard.

“Lily,” The “Mentor,” And A Job That Sounded Like Tech Work

Stephanie Sierra reports that Furseth says a woman named “Lily” told her the job was with Facebook’s ad management center.

The supposed job, according to Furseth’s account to Sierra, was that she would be placing ads as part of some AI testing process.

Furseth told Sierra the pitch was full of familiar language.

“It’s kind of in a beta state right now,” Furseth said, describing how it was presented to her.

She added that the “software buzzwords” matched her background, which made it feel legitimate.

That detail is important because it shows how these scams get personal without feeling personal.

They don’t have to know your deepest secrets. They just have to talk like they belong in your world.

Sierra says Furseth was also paired with a “training mentor” who coached her during onboarding.

That sounds like a real company, right? A mentor. Training. A process.

But there was a key detail that would later sit in Furseth’s head like a flashing warning sign. Aside from one call, Sierra reports, most of the communication happened through WhatsApp.

The Moment Money Entered The Picture

Stephanie Sierra explains that Furseth says she was instructed to move money in a very specific way.

Not just “buy something.”

Not just “pay a fee.”

But a whole chain of transfers that looked like it belonged to a modern tech workflow.

Furseth told Sierra she had to wire money from her bank into a crypto platform. Then she had to transfer that money into what she believed was a Facebook platform app.

It would sit in a “digital wallet,” she said, and she would pull from that wallet to place the ads.

On paper, it almost sounds like a weird contractor setup.

In real life, it’s a screaming red flag. Because legitimate employers do not ask new hires to wire personal funds into crypto so they can do “work.”

That’s not onboarding. That’s the start of a drain. Furseth admitted to Sierra that this should have made her pause.

And if you’re reading this thinking, I would never do that, it’s worth remembering something: once a scammer has you taking steps, the steps start to feel normal.

One transfer becomes two.

Two becomes “just one more.”

And before long, you’re no longer deciding. You’re continuing.

The Fake App That Looked Like The Real Thing

One of the most chilling details in Stephanie Sierra’s report is what Furseth says she saw when she logged into the app.

Sierra asked a careful question.

“When you logged on to this app, it had your actual Facebook messages in it?” Sierra said.

Furseth answered: “Yes.”

Sierra pressed again: “Every single message?”

“Yes,” Furseth said.

Furseth told Sierra it looked totally like Facebook.

Same icon, same login behavior, same overall feel.

She said she logged in with the same credentials she used for her real account, and everything looked familiar.

Sierra notes it’s unclear exactly how the messages appeared inside the fake system.

But in the real world, scammers don’t need perfection. They just need enough realism to keep you from backing out.

When someone sees their own messages, their brain clicks into a dangerous thought: This must be real. And once your brain decides that, the next bad decision gets much easier.

“Huge Profits” On The Screen, And A Trap At The End

Stephanie Sierra reports that Furseth says she started placing a lot of Facebook ads, and the account showed big profits.

That’s another key ingredient in modern scams: the dashboard.

A number that rises.

A wallet that looks full.

A “profit” display that makes you feel like your work is paying off.

After about six weeks, Sierra says Furseth believed she had one final ad to place before cashing out.

Furseth told Sierra she tried to withdraw around $400,000. That’s when the story turns from “weird job” to “this is a trap.”

Furseth says the scammers told her she did it wrong. They claimed she was supposed to withdraw everything, not just part of it. That’s such a classic manipulation move: create a rule after the fact, then punish the person for not knowing it.

Furseth told Sierra, “They tricked me.”

And when she tried to push back, Sierra reports the scammers shifted tactics again—this time posing as Facebook customer service.

They threatened to freeze all the money unless she paid a 20% penalty.

That’s not customer service.

That’s extortion dressed up in corporate language.

The Point Where It Felt “Personal” In The Worst Way

Stephanie Sierra reports that Furseth says by this point, she had nothing left.

And then the “mentor” changed tone. Furseth described the moment her instincts finally screamed loud enough to cut through the fog.

“This mentor started getting really personal,” Furseth told Sierra. “The fur on the back of my neck stood up.”

That sentence is the sound of someone realizing they’ve been walked into a room and the door just locked behind them.

And the next part is even more brutal.

Sierra reports Furseth says the so-called mentor suggested she sell her car and belongings at a pawn shop to “unfreeze” the account.

At that point, the scam isn’t only stealing money. It’s trying to strip someone down to nothing. That’s why stories like this hit people so hard. Not because they’re unusual, but because they’re cruel.

Meta Steps In After The Damage Is Done

Stephanie Sierra says 7 On Your Side worked directly with Meta on the case.

After reviewing documentation, Sierra reports Meta removed the fraudulent WhatsApp accounts that targeted Furseth.

Sierra also shared a WhatsApp statement noting the company works to reduce spam and unwanted messages, but people can still be contacted by other users if they have your phone number, similar to SMS or phone calls.

Meta also told Sierra that scammers often cycle victims across multiple platforms, which makes these scams harder to spot at scale.

Sierra says Meta is rolling out tools meant to help users identify fraud faster.

And she reported a striking figure: Meta says more than 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts linked to criminal scam centers have been suspended worldwide.

That number sounds huge, but it also hints at something uncomfortable.

If millions of scam-linked accounts are getting taken down, that means the pipeline is massive. It means the problem isn’t a few bad actors.

It’s an industry.

The Lesson That Hurts The Most

Stephanie Sierra ends this story where it belongs: with the human cost.

Furseth told Sierra it’s terrifying. Because she wasn’t reckless her entire life. She said she had a good job for most of her career.

And now, after what she called “one stupid mistake,” it’s gone.

That line is painful because it’s how victims often talk about themselves after a scam—like they committed a moral failure.

But Sierra’s reporting shows something else.

This wasn’t one mistake. It was a designed process meant to overwhelm someone’s judgment with realism, urgency, and fake success.

If you take anything from Sierra’s report, it should be this: a “remote job” that requires you to wire your own money, route it through crypto, and talk to a “mentor” on WhatsApp is not a job.

It’s a trap wearing a name badge. And the reason it keeps working is because the scammers aren’t just stealing money. They’re stealing trust – piece by piece – until the account hits zero.