Scammers pretending to be lottery winners bilked an elderly woman out of $60,000 this week, according to Elgin police reports.

A 78-year-old woman was leaving a hair salon in the 200 block of Dundee Avenue about 11:30 a.m. Monday when she was approached by a man in his 40s who told her he won $26,000 in the lottery and planned to use the money to get home to Ecuador, the report said.

A woman in her 20s joined the conversation and said lottery officials would not release the money without $68,000 collateral and the pair promised the woman $9,000 if she would help them get the money, police were told.

Together, they drove to three Chase Bank locations – two in Elgin and one in Carpentersville — where the elderly woman made two $15,000 withdrawals and one for $30,000. She told police the man had warned her not to tell bank employees why she was making such large withdrawals or the lottery would deduct 40 percent of the winnings, according to the report.

After the withdrawals, the pair asked the woman to go to a home on Center Street to collect the remaining $8,000. No one was home at the address, and when she returned to where she left the pair, they were gone, police said.

Cherie Aschenbrenner, crime prevention specialist and elderly services officer for Elgin, said she has seen similar scams and they tend to happen in the Hispanic community where people feel they can trust someone of the same culture.

“It’s very, very sad,” she said. “That is a lot of money. I haven’t seen that high of an amount lost in a long time.”

She recommends that seniors distance themselves from anyone asking them for help collecting lottery winnings, and said they should not hesitate to call police to report suspicious incidents.

People are “preying on older people and older people want to help and that’s their generation … but you just have to walk away,” Aschenbrenner said.

Chase Bank spokesperson Christine Holevas said Wednesday bank personnel did ask the elderly woman whether she was sure about the large withdrawals and she was insistent so they complied, but did require an additional form of identification.

“The owner of an account can ask to withdraw available funds from an account at any time in any amount,” Holevas said.

In July, the state passed a law requiring banks to train employees on spotting financial exploitation of the elderly, according to Susan Hofer, spokesperson for the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Training guidelines are being crafted by her department in conjunction with the Department on Aging and have not yet been given to the banks.

Holevas said Chase employees go through “a lot of training on variety of subjects” but declined to go into detail. She said once the state gives out its training rules, “we will ensure employees follow the letter of the law.”