<p>This post is by way of a warning. My mother – a tough, lady, engineer, world traveler – fell for one effective phone scam, and lost two thousand dollars thinking she was helping her grand-daugher (my kiddo.)</p>
<p>A young girl called crying hysterically. She pretended to be my mother’s grand-daughter, and said she was arrested in Montreal where she was visiting a friend’s wedding. She said she had too much champagne, was pulled over, tested for DUI and would now spend the next 3 days in jail unless she was bailed out. Begged not to tell her parents, begged for help. </p>
<p>English is not my mother’s native language and, at 77, she is a tad hard of hearing. This phone call shook her up, but she was determined to help. She wired the bail money, despite my step-dad’s and my sister’s scepticism. I’m sure had THEY listened to this young woman they would have recognized that the caller was NOT who she was pretending to be. </p>
<p>Today my mother is chastened. “Live and learn” she said. She’s out a lot of money and probably feeling pretty dumb. I sent her a bouquet of flowers telling her she really IS the world’s best grandma. </p>
<p>In case you have a loving relative who’d be thrilled to help out a grand child…do be ware…</p>
<p>I’m so sorry that your mother was taken advantage of. This scam has been around for ages. Just google “grandparent scam” and thousands of hits will come up. Our local news stations have run several segments on this scam over the past few years as it seems to pop up frequently in Arizona (probably due to the large number of retirees here).</p>
<p>My SIL’s husband recently was sent an email from his “son” saying that they were traveling in Europe and had all their money stolen, and asked him to wire money. Somehow this scam artist knew his email and his son’s email as well, and had used it in the scam.
Fortunately my SIL’s hubby was skeptical, even though his son was traveling, because the wording in the email didn’t sound quite like his son would sound- the tone was slightly off. He called the son’s cell and wasn’t able to get through, but contacted everyone they knew in common until he reached him.
One of his other relatives- an aunt, I think, actually did send some money. Apparently the son’s email account was stolen, which enabled all of this mischief. So it’s not just the phone scams we need to be aware of.</p>
<p>This happened to my grandmother…pretty much the same thing, young man called her claiming to be my brother. Grandmother asked him when his birthday was and he hung up.</p>
<p>This is a pretty common scam going around now. The people who perpetrate scams like this on the elderly taking advantage of their emotions and frailty are beneath the dirt I walk on. I’m sorry your mom was hit with this.</p>
<p>A scammer targetted my parents, too, with a virtually identical scheme. They didn’t fall for it, however. It turned out that the same guy had called lots of people in their independent-living retirement facility.</p>
<p>moonchild, my DS was a near victim to this scam over the summer when he received a desperate email from a fraternity brother asking him to wire money. DS was on his way to Western Union when I learned of the situation and stopped him. These scammers actually commandeer others’ email accounts so their requests appear to be legitimate. DH and I had a long talk with DS that night, telling him that should anything similar ever recur, he must ask the other person for information that only he or she would know-- who drove whom to a certain event, who brought which date to fall formal, or some such type of trivia. This near miss was terribly frightening as DS almost wired his entire summer’s savings.</p>
<p>My father also got this call. He called me and I called son knowing he wasn’t in Canada. I really wish there was a way to catch these creeps and throw them in jail.</p>