Greg's Corner

Florida father falls victim to kidnapping scam

By Greg Collier

Even after all this time, we still get comments from readers who claim that they would never fall for any of the scams we’ve discussed. While that may be true, we still maintain that anyone can fall victim to a scam if the circumstances are right. For every victim that falls for a scam, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of attempts by scammers that fail. While the odds may be in your favor that you won’t fall for a scam, they’re never at zero, as one man from Florida recently found out.

The man from the Tampa Bay area was busy working as a DJ at a local wedding when he received two phone calls. One was from his 17-year-old daughter and the other was from Mexico. He couldn’t answer the calls at the time since he was working. However, he received a second call from Mexico and answered it since he had family that were vacationing there.

The caller claimed that he got into a fender bender with the man’s daughter and took her hostage, since the caller claimed to be carrying a substantial amount of drugs. The caller even put what sounded like a young woman crying on the phone. Then the caller demanded the man leave the wedding and wire him $1500 to get his daughter back. The man went to a local supermarket, where he wired money to the scammer. At that point, the call ended. The man called his wife, and she was able to verify that their daughter was safe and had not been kidnapped. The man even stated to local media that this was a perfect storm of circumstances that allowed him to fall victim to the scam.

This scam is known as the virtual kidnapping scam and according to local police, this scam finds victims around 5-10 times a week in the Tampa area. The FBI has even said that the virtual kidnapping scam is the scam with the third-highest number of victims nationwide.

As we often tell our readers, actual kidnappings for ransom in the United States are actually quite rare. If you are ever unfortunate enough to receive a one of these calls, try to keep calm. We know that’s easier said than done. Even if the caller is keeping you on the call, find a way to contact the person that the callers are claiming to have kidnapped, or someone who can verify their whereabouts. You should also contact your local police department.