Greg's Corner

Dangerous scam continues to target seniors

By Greg Collier

If recent news reports are anything to go by, more and more scammers are resorting to the grandparent scam. It seems like every day, there is a news report from a police department or sheriff’s office warning their residents about this scam. Usually, after someone has already fallen victim to the scam. It’s becoming such a common occurrence that the scammers have almost perfected the scam and have any answer the victim might have about the scam.

For example, an elderly woman from New Jersey was having trouble getting in touch with her grandson. Before she could get a hold of him, scammers called her, posing as her grandson. The phony grandson said he was in trouble and had a broken nose and split lip. Scammers will say their face is injured to explain why they don’t sound like the actual grandchild.

The phony grandson told the woman that he was in jail because he was involved in a car accident with a woman who was eight-months pregnant. This is often told to victims to make the situation appear more serious and appeals to the victim’s emotions, hoping that the victim thinks less clearly.

The woman offered to call the grandson’s father, but the scammer begged her not to, with the only explanation being “I’ll explain later”. Scammers do this to isolate the victim from contacting anyone else, which would potentially tip the victim off to this being a scam.

The woman was instructed to call a phone number which was supposed to be a public defender’s office. This was just another part of the scam. She was told she needed to pay $8000 in cash to bail out her grandson. She offered to pay with a credit card, but was instructed it had to be cash. Grandparent scammers usually ask for cash, since there will be no paper trail once the money has been handed over.

She was also told that these proceedings were under a gag order, and she could not tell anyone about them. Again, this is done to isolate the victim. Gag orders do not work in this way and are usually given to the participants of a trial.

She went to her bank and got the $8000 and was told to put it in a shoebox full of magazines. We imagine this is done in an attempt to hide the money from police in case the scammer is pulled over, but any cop worth their salt would find the money fairly quickly.

Then someone posing as a courier came to her house, claimed the box and drove off. Local police are now searching for the supposed courier.

Two hours after this all happened, her actual grandson called her and told her he had not been in jail.

One of the best ways to protect yourself from this scam is to ask the ‘grandchild’ only something they would know. When confronted with questions like this, scammers tend to hang up. You can also hang up from the phone call and try to call the person who has been supposedly arrested. No one ever got more jail time from being hung up on. Lastly, you can also call the police department that supposedly arrested them. They’ll be more than happy to assist you and will let you know if you’re being scammed.