It is really difficult to try to get people to not respond to scammers.
They can come at them with telephone calls, e-mail, and text messages. They used to use the US postal service, back in the mid 1990s.
Here are the first steps you should have already done:
1) Unplug the computer. Scammers will get their victims to download software like anydesk which they can then use to give them continued access to the computer. Even if the scammers got every penny, don't imagine that they are magically gone. They aren't.
2) Take care of the banking breach immediately. With their access to the computer, the will have watched the victims enter their bank's url, their on-line banking username, and their password. They have this information already and you need to block it as soon as humanly possible. They can and will keep coming back for more.
Contact the bank and have them disable the on-line banking access to this account.
My recommendation is to open a new bank account and move everything left to it. Close the old bank account. Of course, they will have to notify their direct deposits and automatic withdrawals, but that is a whole lot better than the scammers keeping taking the money out.
And don't use the same password again.
Also, never use zelle. Once you send something with zelle, the bank does not have to refund the money. Your money can be gone even faster than with the gift cards.
3) At a minimum, change the e-mail password if it is not too late. The scammers will know the current e-mail address and password. It is a simple matter for them to change the pasword so that they can continue to read through the e-mail.
They have probably already gone through every bit of e-mail that was available to look for other things. The best thing would be to change the e-mail address, too.
Don't do this from their computer.
4) Plug the computer back in and reinstall the operating system. You don't have any idea what they may have already installed on the computer while they had access to it.
If you can't do this, take it to someone who can. Whatever they charge will be a hell of a lot less than what the scammers can do if they stay on there.
Better yet, install Linux. It can probably do everything they need to do and is somewhat safer. The scammers often don't want to deal with Linux, but that could change.
5) Get them a new phone number. The scammers already know they have an easy mark and they aren't going to forget it. You don't want them calling back over and over again. Sooner or later, they will likely succeed.
Until you have done at least steps, 2, 3, and 4, they are still there and they are watching. You absolutely have to keep the scammers from continuing their scam.
