Scam had grandparents scrambling w/$3500

[Rick Stephens]

Had an interesting event last Wednesday.

My wife and I work together in an online Mac business. So we are together pretty much all the time. She gets a call last wednesday from my sister (the lawyer, no less) who says: "This has got to stop". And proceeds to ream out my wife over the fact that my parents, 91 and 94 years old, are down at Safeway trying to wire $3500.00 to get my son out of jail.

Mind, you, said son is 15 years old and I drove him out to the bus stop, and stuck him on the school bus my very ownself that morning, just a few hours ago.

Story from my sister is the grandparents got a call from Todd, my son, crying on the phone, he was in jail for causing a car wreck and someone died. That we were under a gag order, so we were not to be called or talked to, and he needed $3500 to get out of jail - sob story continues with lots more tears and dramatics. "son' tells grandparents that an officer will call back shortly and confirm the events and hangs up from his one and only allowed phone call.

'Officer' does call back. Confirms story, can't contact his parents, grandparents son. Needs the money now or will be transferred off into worse environment, yada yada. Grands grab cash and head to Safeway to send money off. End of story, money gone - right.

Well, no. On way, nervous Grandma calls lawyer daughter, tells story. She is 'unconvinced' to say the least, but grandma is too scared to actually stop the transaction. To the rescue - girl working counter at Safeway. This gal says: "NO WAY! Not gonna do it, it's a scam."

By then, said lawyerly sis gets hold of wife, who says - Todd is in school eating lunch. Call them and turn it off, right now. Todd is not even driving himself. He is not in jail, and this is a known scam that was just in the paper this week, costing one of our neighbors $2700 and another one $5k.

http://www.idahocountyfreepress.com/...l-help-others/

I have no idea how they tied grandparents in California, to grandson in Idaho, together with phone numbers that are unlisted. But fair warning, seems to be catching all over.

Rick

 

[boatman37]

yep. my mother-in-law got the same call several years ago. he is/was a police officer. they called and said he was in jail in canada and she needed to send him ~$2000 to get out of jail. he had just left her house a few hours earlier. she was suspicious and called my wife so no further action was taken

 

[Fun Times]

Almost the same scam scenario happen to my next door neighbor roughly two years ago now. Supposedly the grandson was in Mexico and $2,400.00 would get him out and it can't be from the parents but grandparents are authorized to get him out. The neighbor couldn't get his son on the phone in time so off to western union he went....Luckily the western union clerk questioned why he was sending the money and she said it's a scam and you're the 5'th one this week for her. The scary thing was when they called back to say we know you went down to western union but we didn't receive the money.... How Come? Neighbor said because I found out this was a scam. They said you learned a valuable lesson from this because since you went down to western union, you would have sent the money had they not said anything both this time and also the next time when we called you back asking for more money basically due to technical difficulties on our part. That final call back made him feel like he was being watched.

Another lady made the local CA news about a year ago when the scammers were able to convince her to send $7,500.00 in a three time period. The fourth time she decided to get brave enough to walk up to a police officer and ask if this seemed right.

 

[aspeck]

Had a friend that experienced something similar ... received email from son in Europe... was robbed and had no money or ticket or passport to get back home. Needed money sent asap. Friend didn't know how they knew everything about him and his family ... well, duh, you put it all out there in social media ... your email address, your phone number, your family size and who they are, when you leave your house, etc. :facepalm:

This is the reason we strongly recommend no email addresses and limited personal information here on iboats. Use the Private Message function instead of giving out emails to people you don't know ... don't list personal info in any social media. It won't stop all of the scams coming your way, but it will slow them down. You will still get the "lottery winning" emails and the Nigerian Prince that wants to use you to move millions out of illegal funds out of Nigeria, but other scams can be minimized.

 

[gm280]

Had a friend that experienced something similar ... received email from son in Europe... was robbed and had no money or ticket or passport to get back home. Needed money sent asap. Friend didn't know how they knew everything about him and his family ... well, duh, you put it all out there in social media ... your email address, your phone number, your family size and who they are, when you leave your house, etc. :facepalm:

This is the reason we strongly recommend no email addresses and limited personal information here on iboats. Use the Private Message function instead of giving out emails to people you don't know ... don't list personal info in any social media. It won't stop all of the scams coming your way, but it will slow them down. You will still get the "lottery winning" emails and the Nigerian Prince that wants to use you to move millions out of illegal funds out of Nigeria, but other scams can be minimized.

:thumb: I totally agree!

My mother-in-law (passed on now) use to call my wife nearly weekly telling her that she was selected to receive $20,000 dollars, or something to that effect, by regular mail stating all she had to do was send $59.95 for the paperwork to be done first. And she seriously was going to do that every time until my wife stopped her. The MIL actually got really angry with my wife because she though my wife was trying to keep her from getting the money and wanting it herself. Older folks seem to fall for such things and obviously don't use common sense anymore as they get older. I am so glad neither my (passed) MIL and my own dad (still living) doesn't have any type of computer. I can only imagine what they would do with fake email scams. :noidea:

 

[boatman37]

also had a friend that called me one day several years ago and told me we had nothing to worry about again. he said he got an email saying he was inheriting millions but had to send money to get it. he gave them his bank info then called me. i had him call his bank immediately and cancel everything. sad thing is he did this again a few months later. he had no money for them to take anyway but they wanted his bank info. he passed away a few years later

 

[Rick Stephens]

Spent some time on the phone with my parents. They are sheepish, to say the least. Amazing how totally wrapped up you can get 'saving the day'.

Rule now is: if you's in jail, 24 hours will probably do you good.

 

[southkogs]

Rule now is: if you's in jail, 24 hours will probably do you good.

LOL ... that's where my dad, grandpa and probably (now) I would start: "He's in jail, eh? How long until I MUST do something with him?"