<p>I think this was mentioned earlier, but needs repeating! This scam has fooled too many grandparents…and one is one too many!</p>
<p>There have been several reports of scams involving people calling up grandparents pretending to be a grandchild. The scammers know the child’s name and some details <<< this is particularly scary!</p>
<p>The scam story usually involves a situation where the grandchild is in trouble of some kind and needs $2k-5k sent immediately. Some Grands are falling for this.</p>
<p>Please warn your parents about these scams so that they won’t be hurt. </p>
<p>Someone just tried this on my 80 yo Dad. I wonder how the scammers find their targets? My kids call my Dad an unusual name so as soon as the girl caller said “Grandpa?”, he knew something wasn’t right. He told her she should be ashamed of herself :)</p>
<p>My mom fell for this. It cost her almost $2,000. Western Union had a big warning on their website about this scam, but of course her generation doesn’t go online to send money. Mom took out her phone book, drove to a WU office and sent the requested amount. She wouldn’t listen to my stepdad’s warning that this didn’t smell right. She was so moved by the idea that my daughter would have trusted her over everyone else to help her that she proceeded. Oy. </p>
<p>My parents were tricked by this scam a couple years ago and lost $2800. The “grandson” and his supposed attorney knew the names my parents go by and also seemed to know that we were out of town. Also odd to me was that they called my dad’s cell phone and he isn’t one who uses his cell phone much so the number would not be common knowledge. I seriously doubt either of my kids even has his cell number.</p>
<p>The story was that our “son” had gone to Mexico for the weekend and landed in jail after drinking. He asked them to please not tell us because it would ruin our trip - yes, we were away with friends. The “lawyer” then advised them how to send the money that would get him out of jail. There was more than one call and both my parents participated. The scammers must be very good because my parents are pretty sharp and both were completely fooled. The lawyer promised that their grandson would call them immediately after his release in a couple of hours. They sat nervously by the phone waiting for a call that didn’t come. Finally they reached out to their grandson and found that they had been scammed.</p>
<p>The scammers were very brazen though because the “grandson” called back the next day to apologize, thank them and ask for just one more favor. This time he needed money to get back into the US. They played along trying to get info that might help the police but there was nothing that could be done.</p>
<p>I would recommend creating some kind of family password that could be requested from any questionable caller. We’ve also told all the grandparents to never handle these kinds of calls alone. They should always contact us even if the caller says not to. We knew exactly what our son was doing that weekend and there was no way he had left the country.</p>
<p>MIL got the call. She also has an unusual grandparent name, and the caller used that name to address her! The caller also knew lots of details about the grandson he claimed to be. MIL was ready to send $$, but a concerned Western Union employee encouraged her to check things out. Thank goodness for that employee–in a larger city or busier office, MIL might have sent the money, no questions asked.</p>
<p>This happened to my mom. They don’t ALL have personal information when they call! This is what happened to my mom. The phone rang and she picked up. A young man said “Hi Gram”. My mother has two grandsons an said “Jimmy?” He replied “Yes! It’s Jimmy!”
From there he described that he was in Mexico and had gotten arrested on a bus because someone had a bag of pot. He couldn’t call his parents because they would be mad at him, etc. Then the “police officer” got on the line and told her to go to western union and send the money. My mom said “Well, I’m waiting for my daughter, EPTR to come. I’ll ask her to take me.” He then asked her if she had told EPTR about his call. At that point she stalled them and called me. I called my nephew to see if he was at home, safe, and NOT in Cancun. The rest is history.
My mom lives in a large senior community. The scammers know those addresses and call random numbers. If my mom hadn’t had grandsons, they would have just said wrong number, sorry!</p>
<p>I called the police in her city and they said that it was happening constantly and very hard to catch them. The owners if my mom’s community have posted signs on all of the elevators to warn people.</p>
<p>My mother was scammed by this last year. They had a young person initially pose as my S, then a “police officer” took over. She actually wired the money to Tblisi (!), using two different wire services according to their directions. This involved driving from place to place and calling them several times on her cell phone from each location. This ordeal almost 2 hours. (She only uses her cell phone to call programmed numbers, basically me and my sister and her nearby grand daughters. Wouldn’t you know, on that occasion, she was able to actually make calls on it!) Luckily she called me shortly thereafter–“You sent money WHERE?!?”-- and I was able to spring into action using the phone/internet and stop the payments from being processed. Both were refunded, although it involved her having to drive around to the places again. (She was 90 at the time.) The people at WalMart, one of the two sites, had tried to dissuade her from sending the money, and they were very happy when I contacted them and she returned.</p>
<p>Later, I asked her what she had thought was going on. She told me that if he really had run afoul of the law that she would probably be paying off a crooked cop, but she was willing to do so if it saved him from having a record of arrest. Or she thought it might be a scam. But she was willing to take the chance for his sake. (He was very touched.)</p>
<p>MIL got one of those calls a couple of years ago. The caller said he was her grandson “Tom” and had some tale of woe, but she was rather suspicious. She asked him several pointed questions, including when his birthday was. When he didn’t seem to know, she dispatched him forthwith. I think she was rather pleased to have been clever enough to avoid falling for some stupid scam.</p>
<p>My folks got this call. The scammer was fishing for information as described above. He didn’t know the GS name. My mom was suspicious and just played with him, finally telling him he had better stay in jail until he straightened out.</p>
<p>"A UW-Madison student was bilked out of $1,500 when he fell for the old phone scam in which the caller says he’s a police officer and demands payment for so-called crimes and threatens arrest.</p>
<p>The 19-year-old man called Madison police on Wednesday to report the fraud, less than a week after police issued a warning about the scam."</p>
<p>My mom got one of these about a year ago. Someone called her and said “This is your oldest grandson,” expecting her to say “(Name), how are you?” and expand the scam from there. She knows her grandsons well enough to know that none of them would greet her that way. She took the number and reported it to the admin of her retirement community. It turned out that several residents had gotten similar calls. </p>
<p>My grandparents got a similar call, and smelled something fishy when the “cop” asked her to make a payment to post bail by paypal. The scammers hung up when my grandparents said that my cousin’s dad was on the way to pick her up at the police station. Luckily no harm done, but it definitely freaked my grandparents out</p>
<p>I’ve warned my parents about this but should do it again. They have a lot of grand kids so wouldn’t recognize all the voices. I will also try and remember for when my grandkids get old enough to be able to get into trouble.</p>
<p>Ironically, my mother told me she had a message on her phone today from someone claiming to be from the IRS, saying they had been trying to reach her and were going to file a suit against her! She hasn’t gotten any letters from the IRS, and I autopay her estimated tax and H does her taxes, so she figured it was a scam. Never a dull moment!</p>
<p>After the first episode, we agreed to have a family code word to use if we really did need money while abroad or something. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten it. I’m going to have to ask what it was. :)</p>
<p>Consolation, my mom mentioned to me that she recently got a call that left a message about someone suing her! I bet it was the same scam that you describe!</p>
<p>The funny thing about the Mexico scam happening to my mom is that the grandson that was supposedly calling her could by and sell rings around the whole family if he wanted to! My mom would be the last person he would call for money!</p>
<p>The odd thing about this stuff is that I’ve never seen anyone prosecuted for it. Just like credit card fraud. I think no one cares enough about it. </p>
<p>I think it may be tough to catch these crooks. If they are caught, they probably plead for a lighter sentence and go find less suspicious victims. I think the scammers are often geographically distant from the victims, which also makes catching and prosecuting them tougher. </p>