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.
Wow these people are from my town. I hope it’s not catching.
How sad that someone doesn’t even know they aren’t talking to their own grandchild. I mean that literally. Someone is so elderly that they don’t pick up on the not knowing the name or voice of the person.
I’ve gotten a scam phone call recently.
The caller had noted that my daughter had ordered a set of CDs to play on our computer to help her with her SAT tests. They had the FedEx confirmation number ready, but needed a deposit.
Since I never give money away over the phone unless I initiated the call, all sorts of red flags went up. I kept the guy talking on the wireless phone while I walked around the house looking for my daughter...she denied ordering anything and the guy hung up immediately.
Honestly, its not that easy to spot them, they are quite slick. My advice: Never give money to anyone unless you initiate the phone cell.
It sounds like a sales call. I receive recorded messages like that everyday. It seems more and more telemarketing companies (and debt collectors) are using machines, instead of people, to call people now. It's really annoying. I hang up as soon as I hear the recording. It's bad enough I have to talk to a machine and wait "on hold" whenever I call a business. But now the machines are calling me and putting me on hold?
Even worse, telemarketing/sales agents won't answer questions anymore these days. They'll just disconnect the call. The most annoying incident happened a couple of months ago: A machine called me, and the recording asked me to "press 1" to speak to an operator about "a very important matter." ;-) I did, waited on hold, and then a sales agent came on and said our vehicle's warranty was due to expire and needed to be renewed. When I asked, "Which vehicle?" he hung up on me.
Ironically, I worked in telemarketing years ago. Of course, back then, we were taught to be polite and professional. Now, machines are calling you, putting you on hold, then connecting you to a sales agent who hangs up on you. It's a wonder any of these companies do any business at all.
Hey guys, as I’m reading about this elderly scam, my daughter brings in my mail.
My father gets his AARP mail here and I handle his finances. I see an envelope for him and inside is a check for over $4800.00 and a letter saying he had won $180,000 sweepstakes and that if he deposited the check (which if I wasn’t so world wise and recognized one error on the check someone else might not have, it looks thoroughly real) and sent back the $2,800 fee then they would forward the rest of his “prize money”.
It says it’s a check drawn on JP Morgan Chase, but underneath it says “Dearborm. MI”, which anyone in the financial industry (or in Michigan) knows that is not the name of the city.
I just reported it to the US Postal Service as mail fraud.
Everyone, maybe you should warn your parents and grandparents about this. Seriously, this check looks totally legit and it is a real swift part about the $2,800 fee and I can imagine that this check might be deposited, but not honored. And they have your checking info even if it is honored initially.
Weird this happens right as I was reading this thread.
See my recent post that freakishly showed up while reading this thread. They are very slick and I had to read it myself a few times to figure out who in the world was sending my dad such an odd amount of $4,825.25. And the check LOOKS REAL.
Does it ask to send the fee to a post office box?
Yes, they are slick.
There’s also this guy, he said he was from the US Treasury. He said that he needed $700 billion right now, or the whole economy would collapse. He said he was going to help out some banks that had made high risk loans after being pressured by the government. He said he needed the money immediately and we could not review his decisions.
Well it turns out that he gave the money to those banks and they simply deposited the money. And the economy collapsed anyway.
Same con. Different scale.
Which goes to show that you are much smarter than most of Congress.
ME LIKEE NEW LOGO!!!1!
What it tells you too do is push 1 to talk to a person or call that number. So, last week I pushed the button and got a recording that sounds like the phone company saying I have to dial a 1 before I can get this number???? We have had a bunch of calls on our voice mail that gives us that same beep and then must dial 1 thing, so I think that is what happens when we are not here and the phone picks it up. They are wanting me to call that number. But we are on the no call list, so if I call them back, it is ME doing the calling and they can say they have not violated the no call rule. A back door type of thing I guess to get me on the line.
Stolen from a MC club. :)
‘Faith in the inherent good of people’ goes well with utopian thinking, but it does not jibe with the concept of Original Sin.
I think you’re on to something there. We’re on the no call list, too.
No, it says the $2,800 will be deducted from my checking account, assumption is the same one the check is deposited into. So he would get the difference between check amount of $4285.25 and $2,800.00 Sometimes funds can be transferred on the appearance of everything being on the up and up. But 5-6 weeks down the road, my dad’s bank would be knocking on his door because the check was fraudulent or not honored after an audit showed it was a faked check.
If there’s a ping list, please add me.
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