One more thing not to worry about.
Posted on 11/24/2008 11:30:40 AM PST by nickcarraway
It started with a phone call from someone they thought was their teenage grandson.
As the story went, he was in Canada with friends. He'd been caught fishing without a license. He needed $3,000 to pay the fine. And, by the way, he said: Please don't let his parents know he was in trouble.
What followed was a series of phone calls — up to five or six a day over a six-day period — from "police," describing their "grandson's" escalating troubles.
Before it was over, the elderly couple had wired $33,000 of their life savings to Canada, money they don't expect to ever see again.
The Grand Haven couple, who did not want to be identified, had fallen victim to a con so common it has a name: "the grandparent scam."
Like many others who've been duped, they were victimized by their love of their grandchildren, their trusting nature, and their lack of knowledge about such scams.
"We had never heard of this. We want people to know this is going on," the grandmother said. "They can't do these things to people who are in their 80s."
The Internet is full of warnings about the scam. State attorneys general, organizations like the Better Business Bureau, newspapers and TV stations from coast to coast have all warned to be wary of calls of distress from grandchildren.
Yet many people apparently are still falling victim.
In the Grand Haven couple's case, the teen's fictional troubles started with a fishing violation, which led to the alleged discovery of drugs in the teenagers' boat. According to the phone calls, the grandson was then jailed and needed bail money.
GRANDPARENTS SCAM How the "grandparent scam" works:
• Older people get calls from a "grandchild," or someone posing as a police officer, saying the "grandchild" is in trouble — usually outside the country.
&bull Grandparents are asked to wire money to a designated place. If they comply, the "grandchild's" troubles -- and the requests for money -- escalate until they wise up to the scam. How to avoid falling for it:
&bull Grandparents who receive urgent calls, allegedly from their grandchildren, should immediately call another family member or the grandchild directly using his or her home or cell phone number to verify their whereabouts.
&bull Do not call the number the caller has given to you.
&bull Do not offer any information. If the grandchild says something like "this is your favorite grandson," ask: "Which one?"
&bull Use a trick question, like 'How's your sister?' If your grandson doesn't have a sister, you will know immediately the call is a hoax.
&bull Never give out personal identifying information such as bank account or credit card account numbers to anyone you do not know and never send money to an unknown account or entity.
&bull When in doubt, Ottawa County Sheriff's Department officials recommend you call your local law enforcement agency for information.
The scam finally unraveled when they felt so bad about leaving the boy's parents in the dark, they urged him to come clean.
They called their grandson's cell phone and left a message. They told him to call his parents and tell them everything.
The grandson, a high school senior in Florida, subsequently heard the message and told his family that something was wrong with his grandmother and grandfather. He said they'd left a weird message on his phone that made no sense to him.
The Grand Haven couple have since been in contact with the FBI and the Ottawa County Sheriff's Department, but there appears to be little anyone can do.
The grandmother said she has heard that scammers get names of potential victims from places like family tree sites on the Internet.
The people on the phone were concerned, helpful and convincing, she said. One of the scammers effectively impersonated her grandson. On another occasion, they said they were agents of the Internal Revenue Service.
The grandparents had questioned why their grandson would be in Canada in the middle of the week when he should have been in school in Florida, but surmised that he may have needed to get away. A good friend had just been killed in a motorcycle accident, and he had been a pallbearer at the funeral.
The couple have spoken to church groups in person, and to friends and acquaintances about the scam, but want their story to be told far and wide, so that others can be aware.
Ottawa County Sheriff's Sgt. Valerie Weiss said the department can't comment on the case because it's under investigation. She said the department gets many such reports every week.
"There are hundreds of these scams," she said.
The Grand Haven couple lost more than money. They lost their faith in the inherent goodness of people.
"We don't trust anybody," the grandmother said.
No such thing as a “new scam”, just old ones reinvented.
They should include themselves as untrustworthy for trying to do an end-run around their own kids.
How did they not know their own grandchild?
The only comment I can make is that my grandparents would have either laughed their asses off or blown one helluva gasket if I had asked them not to tell my parents that I was in trouble with the law. I’m sure this old couple are very nice people, but to give in to some kid’s request that they send him thousands of dollars and not tell his parents was the first door that opened them up to this scam. That’s taking GP love way too far. I almost...I said ALMOST...don’t feel sorry for them.
One more thing not to worry about.
You have good family.
My thought exactly. The $33,000 loss may be pretty minimal when compared to the fact that their child and child-in-law have now learned they can’t be trusted not to help their grandchildren hide serious wrongdoing from their parents.
Ahhh. . . .but until they have Perky Katie (or some other MSM “news” reporter, report it), those grandparents will never hear of the scam. . .or believe it until the MSM reports it. In my home. . . my mother-in-law listens intently to—and believes EVERYTHING—the Perky One tells her. Unless it was reported by the Perky One, it didn't happen, and if it was reported by the Perky One, it happened just like she reported it. Maddening.
The Grand Haven couple lost more than money. They lost their faith in the inherent goodness of people.
Geez, how charmed a life have they led?
“bull Never give out personal identifying information such as bank account or credit card account numbers to anyone you do not know and never send money to an unknown account or entity.”
doh
This is an old scam. I’ve heard about this one for years.
I really, really hate this type of scammer, who play on their victims’ good nature and desire to help others.
Scammers, like the Nigerian bank scammers, who prey on people’s greed (and idiocy) are of a higher moral caliber, IMO, though still wrong of course. I’d gladly let 10 of them go free, if doing so could put 1 grandparent scammer behind bars.
We keep getting a telephone call, that is not a live person, but a recorded voice, saying they have attempted to contact me several times and I must contact them immediately to “correct” the problem. THE PROBLEM is, I do not know who this is calling, because the voice only gives his name, and not who it is that I am suppose to call, what company etc. he is talking about. I told my wife, that if this was such a problem, why is not a live person calling us, and not just a voice mail and giving me a phone number. The real biggie is that we do not have any outstanding problems and have absolutely no idea what scam this is. Anyone else got this call?
FREERIDING ROCKS!
oops forgot...Love the new graphic Slim!!!
what i like to know is why these scam artist never seem to get caught. You wire money somewhere, you could trace it to the bank account the money goes to and catch the guy
Yep, Gramps and Granny trying to be the kid's 'pal' rather than a responsible co-parenting figure! Glad it happened to them to be an example to other fuddy-duddies that might be tempted to do the same.
By the way, most of the suggestions given are bunk. It's not terribly hard to find the names of siblings, etc., from newspaper accounts of obituaries.
One lie (the scammers) followed by another (the grandparents) leads to problems. Who knew?
Dang! Hope they catch the culprits and string them up.
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