BILLERICA — Police Chief Roy Frost is pleased to report that Billerica Police, with assistance from an alert local bank branch manager, were able to interrupt a fraud attempt before a local resident lost thousands of dollars.

On Tuesday, April 9, Billerica Police were contacted by a branch manager from TD Bank’s branch at 499 Boston Road about a possible instance of fraud in progress.

Officers responded to learn that a 75-year-old woman had withdrawn $7,000 earlier in the day and returned to the bank to withdraw even more. Police learned that the woman received a call from an unknown person saying she had won $220,000 in a contest, but that she needed to pay taxes first.

The woman was instructed to purchase gift cards and provide activation numbers over the phone, then told to deposit $7,000 into a bank account that did not belong to her.

Billerica Police determined this was a fraud attempt, and then worked with TD Bank management to put a hold on the deposit. Detectives also were able to regain money spent on the gift cards.

As a result of the actions of the bank manager and Billerica Police, it appears the woman will lose no money in the end.

Billerica Police continue to investigate and are working to identify those involved.

“This was a very close call in which a woman nearly lost thousands of dollars to a scam attempt. I’d like to thank and praise the branch manager and TD Bank for their attention to this matter, which enabled our detectives to intervene in time to save the resident’s money with assistance from the bank,” said Chief Frost. “As always, we encourage anyone who believes they may be facing a scam or fraud attempt to contact Billerica Police at 978-671-0900.”