My elderly parents rcvd a call this morning that my 21-year-old son was in jail and needed them to wire funds to bail him out. Came from a 708 area code. The scam artist did have son’s name - which makes it scary. Parents went nuts calling us, sons, etc. trying to verify that he was at work, not in jail. They actually had the 708 phone number to call back about wiring funds. Frustrating that they believed the muffled voice could have been their grandson who was afraid to call us and called them instead. Frustrating that they bought into the story enough that they went crazy trying to reach us. Son does not answer his cell phone at work, they did not think to text him. DH and I were both in meetings and did not answer our cell phones. They actually reached DH’s boss! What a crazy situation.
They were finally able to reach DH and verify son was ok and did not wire the $1900. It’s absurd because S2 lives with us - so clearly we knew he was home last night/this morning. The fact that they listened to this caller and continued the conversation frustrates me. They maintain they had to play along as if they were believing it in case it was true.
So - warn the grandparents who might fall for something like this. I wish they had simply hung up.
My parents have received this a couple times over the past 2 years or so, but thankfully didn’t fall for it. It is a frequent scam. Definitely warn the grandparents!
This scam has been around for years. The newest one is a call from the IRS telling you an arrest warrant is about to be issued for you due to back taxes owed. They then tell you to go to Target and buy iTunes cards, call them back and give them the coding. as crazy as that sounds many people of all ages have lost thousands of dollars by doing what they asked.
The problem is the targeting of elderly grandparents - who are naive and frightened by such a call. We would know instantly that it was a scam. My parents suspected it was, but called every family member and DH’s boss seeking confirmation that S2 was ok.
My 90 year old mother also received a call like this but knew that it was a scam because she asked which grandson and they could come up with a correct name and she had read about this scam.
My MIL got one of these calls when my son was on his way to visit her in Mexico. According to the caller he had been picked up by customs because he was carrying cash in excess of the amount allowed by law and he needed to be bailed out. We reassured her that her college age grandson, who probably didn’t have more than $100 to his name, was not smuggling tens of thousands of dollars into Mexico.
She made them call us. They had someone surprisingly convincing call us claiming to be our son. We were not fooled and his flight touched down safely a couple of hours later.
A relative of a relative had something similar happen, but they said something like they had kidnapped her dad and wanted money. She was freaked out, but had enough wherewithal to have her husband call parents on cell while she had the “bad people” on the phone, so it turned out OK.
My Dad and his wife were taken in by some scan several years ago. They were told they could get a discounted car if they sent a couple thousand dollars somewhere. It’s amazing to think that they fell for it. My Dad was very intelligent but getting older slowed him down.
My mother was targeted by the “arrested grandson” scam a few years ago.
She jumped through hoops to wire a total of $3K in two transactions before she eventually called me for his number, he by some miracle picked up–he rarely does–and she then called me to tell me what had been going on all day.
I leapt into action on this end and managed to halt both transactions and get her money back. I also called the scammers and berated them. They were very cool. I tracked down the number to a service out of Canada and informed them of the scam, but I never heard anything from them. My mother refused to report it to the police. She was embarrassed, and afraid it would appear in the local paper.
We now have a family secret word to include if we ever have to make a REAL appeal in unusual circumstances.
Elderly folks are particularly susceptible to these sort of scams. For awhile, my mother actually thought the voice that said “You’ve Got Mail” on her AOL (years ago) was a real person.
DD’s med school roommate’s grandparents got scammed by this, scary how vulnerable seniors can be. The whole “I can tell you, but could never tell my parents” must trigger something very emotional for so many to fall for this.
We got the IRS call this week. I can’t imagine anyone falling for it, but I suppose if they make the call to thousands of people, chances are they’ll get a few bites. Sad.
FIL fell for this, but while he was wiring money, someone overheard him and stopped him. He gave up the grandson’s name on the call. He said is this “Brian”? Ugh. They really are smooth operators. Telling them not to tell mom and dad.
We got a scam call for our business claiming to be the local power company and threatening to shut off our electricity immediately if we didn’t go buy some kind of cash card at CVS and call them back with the serial number–and my husband called me at home in a panic, yelling at me about why I hadn’t paid the bill! He’s a pretty sophisticated person, not normally naive or easily frightened, but it just shows how being blindsided by something that appears to be of critical importance can overcome good judgment.
It doesn’t sound completely off base to me that a kid would seek help from a grandparent to avoid getting in hot water with parents. And I can see a sympathetic grandparent going along without checking with the parents if the parents are known to be really hard on the kid. I’m sure this scam persists because it often works.
Today – JUST TODAY – DH fell for the “Your computer is infected by a virus; Let me access your computer” scam. He gave the fellow his credit card info. Thankfully Capital One emailed me to ask if they were scam charges and I called them right away. $800 in scam charges!!! The fellow also convinced DH to let him have access to MY entirely separate computer because – it must be running slow, right? Luckily I happened to come home at that moment and locked the guy out, so only DH’s computer is f***** up.
To say I’m furious with my DH is an understatement. And he’s an ivy league graduate.