My 84-year old mother got a call that her grandson (new college freshman) was in prison for DUI and needed a large sum of money for bail. She spoke to her supposed grandson, who was, we now know, a scammer. Somehow the scammer either knew or “cold read” enough information to sound convincing. Of course the story came with strict instructions to not contact the parents. Grandmom is very quick-witted normally, so one would not expect her to be taken in by this – but she was. Luckily, rather than wiring money, she called her attorney to handle the transaction, and the attorney could not contact the person who was supposedly handling the case. Eventually the real grandchild was contacted and he was in class – not in jail.
So Folks – warn the grandparents that this is a thing.
yes my father got one of those and also fell for it. The nice teller at the bank where he was trying to get a money order or such told him to call them back and ask some questions that only our son would know. I think they are very good at getting the grandparent to give info such as the name of the kid, etc.
This happened with my MIL a few years ago. She got a call that my oldest son was in jail in NJ. She called H to scream at him for allowing S to drink and drive and H said, what are you talking about? He is right here next to me, we are fishing! She insisted on talking to my son. She had told the people to call her back while she tried to find someone to take her to the bank and when they called back, she asked her “grandson” what the name of his aunt is. It’s a strange family nickname that oldest son gave her when he was first learning to talk and nobody would easily know it. This guy didn’t.
Bottom line - warn all potential victims about this scam.
A variation is the your friend is in jail. I once got a text message asking me to provide money for a friend who was supposedly stranded in London. Funny thing, though, my friend and his wife were literally sitting across from me at a restaurant having dinner, thousands of miles from London.
MIL got a call recently from someone who introduced himself like “Hi grandma it’s your oldest grandson”. When she said S’s name, the guy said yes. Then he told her that he had been in an accident and broken his nose and totaled his car. I don’t know that he managed to ask for anything, but she called me to see if S was okay. I had to wake him up to find out, LOL.
We’ve tried to make it clear that any of the grandchildren would call their parents or their siblings for help before calling their grandparent, regardless of the circumstances. She knows to be skeptical.
My mother fell for a variation on this a few years ago. They used the line “This is your favorite grandson.” She responded with his name–he’s her only grandson–and then they put someone else on the line. She wired something like $5K to the scammers in two transactions from different locations. While she was doing it she thought she was probably paying off a crooked cop, but she was willing to do it anyway. Then she called me to get his phone #, and STILL didn’t give him up. I was in the middle of something, or I would have asked more questions. She called him, he by a miracle actually answered his phone, and then she called me back and told me what she had done. I sprang into action on the phone and arranged to cancel both transactions. She had to go back to the two locations to finalize it, but at least we got her money back.
After that we established a family code word that we would use if someone actually WAS in trouble and needed money.
I warned my kids’ grandmother about those types of calls……and since then she’s received at least 3 calls. The last one the caller identified himself as her grandson (insert first name), which IS the first name of my son. My mom asked the caller where he was and he replied that he was in the Dominican Republic with his friends. Then she asked him what he was doing there and he hung up on her. She knew that wasn’t her grandson and that her grandson was at UCSB doing an internship. Another time she received a call and the caller identified himself as her grandson….and she asked the caller what his name was. He hung up.
We have a family password that my kids, myself and grandmother know and would ask for if we needed to verify identity, Never had to use it yet.
My mother fell for it a few years ago – spent $2,000 before she realized she’d been duped… Warn all grandparents! This has been going on for a long time because it works!
My normally very sharp parents fell for it a few years ago to the tune of $3600. They were absolutely positive my son was in a Mexican jail and they were willing to help him keep it from us. My dad said if he had gotten into trouble at that age he definitely would have gone to his grandfather instead of his father so the request made sense to him. They got another call just a week or so ago. This time the “grandson” called them by the wrong name so they knew from the get-go it was a scam. A family password is a great thing to have.
My mom got that call a few years ago. She didn’t fall for it, strung the guy along for awhile, then told him off.
The funniest part was her guessing which grandson it was when the caller said “Grandma, I’m in trouble.” We teased the one she picked as grandson most likely to end up in jail.
MIL got that call (DS1 drove DUI, in jail, broken nose) and was . . . half convinced. She thought it was DS1 but called me instead of wiring the money. I figured it was this scam but confirmed DS1’s very boring whereabouts at work (“My nose is fine. Why?”) before calling MIL back and explaining.
I emailed MIL links from our state AG’s office, AARP, etc. The impression I got was that anyone getting a call like this should contact local law enforcement. MIL didn’t but she has a bunch of info now should she decide to pursue future contacts.
We didn’t think of using a family password because we worried about exactly what @sylvan8798 mentioned, that they might not remember it or to use it. So we told both moms that when something like this happens, or anything strange, to contact us immediately or their attorney if they couldn’t reach us.
MIL doesn’t have an answering machine but my mother does and screens all her calls. That helps, or she’s been lucky, because she hasn’t been tapped yet.
My parents got a call like this a few years ago which was supposedly from my nephew. They knew it was a con, but Dad kept the young man talking for awhile. The creepy thing is that not only did he know where my folks lived but gave information about their small hometown that indicated that he was familiar with it. He also had information on my nephew who grew up in/lives in a different part of the country.
coralbrook, we get a lot of mailings targeted to folks retiring or near retirement age about seminars. I’m sure it is easy to find names of elderly people. If I google my name it comes up with my age and city name. It also comes up with names of some of my relatives - 2 of my kids, my in-laws, and my parents’ name show up - maybe from posted obituaries? Not sure about the grandchildren part. There was a recent incident in my area involving large amounts of Target gift cards. . Sometimes people at the bank can spot it if a large unusual withdrawal is involved
One of the places my mother wired money from was Walmart. The employees there begged her not to do it. She told them she knew it might be a con, but she was going to do it anyway for her grandson, just in case. When I got them on the phone, they were ecstatic. When she showed up later to rescind it, they practically fell on her neck, as they say. I reserve a warm spot for her local Walmart as a result.
I actually called the number she had been calling and yelled at them. The Eastern European-sounding guy denied everything very smoothly, and hung up on me. When I called back immediately, the number was out of service. I tracked down the number to a Canadian cell phone service. I sent them an email informing them that the number was being used by scammers. Never received a reply.
My DD’s med school roommate’s grandparents got the scam for about $8k, they were told she was in Mexico! My mother got the call a few months ago and, yes, she named the grandchild most likely to be in trouble It took quite a while to calm her down
My mom got one of these calls from her “favorite grandson” a few months ago. He was asking for money to get of jail and didn’t want his parents to know. She actually believed it was my nephew, but luckily her response was “If you are in trouble, you need to call your father.”
My mom got one of these calls and didn’t fall for it. She didn’t recognize the voice. She told them if he did something wrong, maybe spending the night in jail would be a good lesson.
I know someone who got something sort of the opposite of this. She was told someone had her grand parents and they wanted money or something. She was very upset but fortunately got her husband to use a cell phone to make sure her grandmother was OK while she was on the land line with the scammers. All turned out OK, but it was a stressful night. I think she was very pregnant at the time, which added to the stress.
It took quite a while to calm her down