BOARDMAN - A Boardman woman lost $40,000 after police say she was scammed by someone impersonating a PayPal employee.

According to a police report, the woman received an email on Tuesday, December 2 that a $500 purchase was made from her PayPal account with a phone number to contact on it.

Police say the woman contacted that number and spoke to a scammer impersonating a PayPal employee about the alleged fraudulent charge. The scammer told the woman that she could request a refund on a website.

From there, police say the scammer told the woman that she had accidentally requested a $50,000 refund instead of $500 and that she had to pay the money back.

The scammer requested that the woman purchase several Target and Xbox gift cards and send him the codes, which she did. Police say the gift cards' values totaled $4,000.

From there, the woman made several withdrawals from several branches of First National Bank, totaling $21,000 and converted $15,000 in cash to Bitcoin. 

Police say the woman met up with a man in a parking lot on Western Reserve Road near Shell and McDonald's to give him the $21,000 in cash.

The woman planned to withdraw even more cash from the bank, but police say her friend stepped in and stopped her. From there, she checked her PayPal account and saw that no fraudulent activity ever occurred in the first place.

In all, the scammers stole $40,000 from the combined cash, gift card and Bitcoin transactions.

No arrests have been made at this time.