From Fitbit to financial despair: How one woman lost her life savings and more to a scammer

Posted on 12 September 2025, the Malwarebytes feature recounts Karen’s long-running box scam, which began on 1 January 2020 after a man named Charles Hillary connected with her on the Fitbit app. According to the FBI, Karen filed a police report at her local Sheriff’s Office, alongside the FBI, TBI, IC3 and the Better Business Bureau, once she realised she had been manipulated into paying escalating sums.

The scheme’s costs started with a $3,900 shipping charge for a “box” and then mushroomed to payments for various forms, ranging from $25,000 to around $60,000, which she paid. By late 2020 she owed about $65,000 in debt, all in her name, and she eventually faced a remaining $20,000 debt even after the scam stopped changing tactics in December 2020.

The investigation notes two intertwined personas spelling out the same scam script, with threats followed by a sympathetic “helper” to push further payments, and concludes with Karen still receiving emails and the need to juggle two jobs to manage the financial fallout.