Greg's Corner

Nationwide grandparent scam foiled

By Greg Collier

Whenever we talk about scams, we usually talk about two things, the scam itself, and how to protect yourself from the scam. However, every so often we talk about the inner workings of a particular scam. For example, we discussed how gift card scammers used runners to drain the cards quickly. Today, we have an insight to another popular scam that’s seen a sharp rise in the past year. That would be the grandparent scam.

Again, for those who may be new readers, the grandparent scam is when scammers will pose as an elderly victim’s grandchild. They’ll say that they’ve gotten into some kind of legal trouble and need money to rectify the situation. Requests for bail money are usually the more popular versions of the scam, although requests for emergency medical expenses are a close second. The scammers will often ask for payment in some kind of untraceable form like gift cards or money transfers, but one scam ring got very creative in getting their stolen money.

One scam ring based out of Georgia that consisted of several people were arrested after allegedly trying to collect money they scammed out of some unwitting victim. They’re accused of traveling from city to city finding victims only to have them send cash to unoccupied homes. The scammers would then drive buy the homes and grab the packages off the porches. This particular ring was said to have traveled to Indiana, Illinois, South Carolina, Virginia, Mississippi and Ohio. They were caught trying to get one of the packages from an Indiana porch where police were waiting for them.

If the scammers had put this much effort into something beneficial instead of a nationwide scam, they’d probably be just as successful and not have to worry about a potential jail sentence.