This happened to a friend of mine. Someone called to say he was my friend's grandson, stranded with no money in some city like Las Vegas. The guy said, "Please, Grandpa, can you send me a few hundred dollars to eat tonight and get me back home?"

Sadly, my friend believed the scam and sent $1000. Was he naive? Yes. Did he deserve to lose his very limited and hard earned money? No. The blame belongs with the scammer, not the victim.

DH and I have received three of these calls and told off the callers who don't sound like kids the ages of our grandsons. Last time it happened DH hubby had the man sputtering and slamming down the phone.

I hope no one will put up with strangers on the phone wanting money or making fraudulent claims.

Are these petty thieves? Yes. But my friend losing $1000.00 to one didn't seem like a petty incident to him. He's 90 and living on a fixed income with prescription bills higher than he paid for housing plus food a few years ago. A "petty" scam like this means he must cut back on basics for a few months. That hurts!

I hope we'll all be careful and not get caught in such schemes. Of course I'm not demanding it as many say I do. I'm suggesting and everyone can make their own decision.

Happened to my MIL: sounded *just* plausible enough that she went for it.

Sorry for your MIL.

A bad guy wouldn't need to pull this off more than a couple of times a week to live quite well.

I'd like them to be living in a dark cell with nothing but a lumpy cot and a toilet hole in the floor.

Yeah, it's horrible. Tell all gramps and grams to tell callers to go through "Aunt Millie," (or another named aunt/uncle who doesn't exist), and when the caller asks for "Aunt Millie's" phone number, gramps and grams will know it's a criminal-stranger.


How's Sue been? (there is no Sue)

Have you asked your brother? (there is no brother)

And so forth. One personal question is worth $1000.

The only telephone scam I have actually received was that my computer had a virus and they could help me remove it. All I had to do was log onto their website and download a small program that would clean up my computer. I played along for a while and kept asking the guy to repeat what he said because I "couldn't understand" him. And of course, I was too stupid to type in the exact web address and eventually he hung up.

I wrote this a couple of years ago for my Sunday column in the local newspaper:

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The phone rang the other morning, so I answered it, as I usually do. "Hello?" I said.

There was a pause, then a young man's voice said, "Hello, Grandpa!"

I didn't recognize the voice. I have eight grandsons, ranging in age from 35 to 10. The voice sounded like he was in his 20s. I had no way of telling which grandson it was. I rarely have the chance talk to them on the telephone. I naturally wanted to know which grandson I was talking to. "Well, hi! Nice of you to call. Who is this?"

"It's your favorite grandson," he said.

"C'mon," I said. "I don't have a favorite grandson. I love you all the same. Which one are you?"

"I'm the best-looking one," he said.

"Really, all the Packham grandsons are good-looking. You need to tell me who you are!"

Long pause. Then click. He hung up.

I told my wife I had just had a really strange phone call, and repeated the whole thing for her. She reminded me that my brother-in-law had gotten a similar call a few years ago. He has only one grandson, so when the voice said, "Hello, Grandpa!" he naturally answered, "Is this Karl?" "Yeah," the voice said. "It's Karl, and I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm in trouble." He went on to say that he had gone to Mexico on a lark and got arrested. He was in jail and had no money, and he needed $500 to pay a Mexican lawyer to get him out of jail. And please send it right away.

"Gee, Karl, I haven't got that kind of money. I don't know what to tell you. Can I do anything else?"

"You can't send the money?" "No, I can't. I'm sorry." Click.

At first I was a little bit proud that my grandson didn't ask me for money because he had irritated some Mexican cop. But then I realized that he had hung up before he got that far. Maybe he really was in a Mexican jail, and was just too proud to be begging for money from me, knowing how stingy I am. I was all ready to try to trace the call to find out what kind of trouble he was in, and which grandson it was, when my wife said, "It's just a scam! That wasn't your grandson, and the other caller wasn't Karl. It's just another form of the Nigerian bank account scam!"

Now, I admit that I am sometimes too gullible, and that sometimes my wife is too skeptical, but I had to admit that she was probably right on this one. I should have been suspicious when he wouldn't give me his name. He wouldn't because he couldn't. He didn't know the names of any of my grandsons.

Next time he gets in trouble and calls me, I'll make him tell me his mother's birthday, or else I'll just let him rot in that jail. That's no way to treat your grandfather.

"I'm your oldest and favorite grandson." Thankfully, I could tell that the guy was at least twenty years older than my young teen grandson or the ten year old.

My call: Hello grandpa? Me: Yes.

Caller: Do you know who this is? Me: Well it sounds like Caleb. Caller: Yes, it is

Then the usually story, arrested in Mexico and needs bail money of $2000 to get out or he'll spend the next six weeks in jail.

Me: What's your mother's name? Caller: Why do you need to know that? Can't you just send the money, I don't want to spend the next six weeks in jail.

Me: What's your mother's name? Caller: Click

How do they actually get away with this? What if their intended " grandpa" didn't have any grandsons or knew their voices? Most people say their name when they call. A lot of grandchildren wouldn't ask their grandparents directly for money,so it'll be out of character.
$1,000 isn't petty cash either, especially to a pensioner.Its a form of elder abuse also, so sad, poor guy. I hope they catch the perp and he gets his money back.
Jail would give him a place to sleep and eat if he uses that as a motive.
Give the number of the local police station to him, and tell him to call " Uncle David", or whoever, and ask him

If the target doesn't have grandkids then the scammer just hangs up and calls another number

They call in the middle of the night to make sure they get a confused, half asleep old person. Then they just say "grandpa?" hoping that the old person will say Joey, is that you? Then of course they say yes grandpa it's Joey!

Anytime their target catches on, the scammer just hangs up and goes on to the next potential victim.

I received a call from an 84 year old man one Monday morning. He'd had a very long weekend. From Friday until late Sunday he'd been scammed out of $36,000 over four installments with the grandparent scam.

The caller even sounded like his grandson. He knew his name, age, etc. He was supposedly in jail in some offshore island, and needed the money to post bail x's 4.

By the time the elderly gentleman had figured out he'd been scammed, the money was wire transferred, which is the same as handing cash to a stranger on a street corner. Untraceable.

He was physically sick. There is no agency on earth that can help you get back what's been lost after being scammed like that.

I get calls like that all week. The best ones are those who haven't lost their shirt off their backs yet. Because they called before they became swindled, instead of after. Same with the IRS scams; technical support scams; counterfeit check scams; Craigslist scams. There is no end in sight. The scammers have only gotten more brazen in the three decades I've been there.

We've even had Indian scammers call us and try to con us - and we are agency watchdogs lol. They are ruthless. Because they operate overseas we have no jurisdiction over them, and they know it. It's encouraging to see the Indian authorities trying to crack down on some of them. Because they operate similar to the drug cartels of South America, it's not that easy to do because of systemic corruption overlapping between local authorities and the outlaws.

I have never received one of these scam call but if I did, I'd play along for only a short while and then reveal the fact that I have no grandsons, which is the truth.

The "IRS" has called few times to tell me I'm in arrears on my taxes and they're going to seize my property. The first time it happened, I thought about 10 seconds and then hung up. The second time, I told him I was going to record the call and hand the recording over to the FBI--he hung up.

For the record, THE IRS COMMUNICATES THROUGH MAIL -- NOT THROUGH PHONE CALLS, if you receive a phone he call from the IRS, it's a scam.

They can sound very threatening.

I've heard about the grandparent scam. It's really dreadful that scammers will stop at nothing to get other people's money. People need to be very aware nowadays.

If you are signed up with a job hunting site. I get two or three random texts a month telling me a they need pet or childcare because they are moving to my area soon and want me to contact them through an offsite email address.

Usually these are people who want to "electronically deposit a check" into your account before doing an interview or a background check, but it's a way to get into your accounts and drain them.

Cheryl said above:
"Last time it happened DH hubby had the man sputtering and slamming down the phone."

I had said the next time one of these scums calls I would say my grandson's name was "Fred." I was ready.

Scum: Opened the call saying he was in Puerto Rico on Easter Break.
Me: "Is that you Fred?"
Scum: "Yes, Grandpa. It's me Fred."
Me: "You don't sound like yourself, Fred."
Scum: "I know, I've been sick, I'm here with a college friend -"
Me: Are you down there with that Michael? I told you to stop hanging around with him."
Scum: I know but we are here and we need help -"
Me: "And I guess that Lisa is down there too. Well I don't think you will be with her much longer. After your Grandma and I got divorced I decided I wanted a younger woman. When you split up with Lisa you have to tell me. OK."

Scum: Sputter, sputter,
Me: "Is she good in the sack? What's the favorite thing she ever did for you in bed?"

And then the scum slammed down the phone. Don't you think that was rude?

Pay Lay Alol

I never answer numbers I don't recognize, but they left a message both times.

I had heard about both of these types of calls on Get Gephardt on KUTV here in Utah.

My BIL was starting to work summers in Alaska with my daughter last year. He was in Fairbanks training and he got the IRS call. He was really stressed out as it was, so this call really threw him. He was following their orders. My sister told him NOT to send the money. He was on his way to Walgreens to send it. I told her about the KUTV story.

I've also had someone call up and tell me they could get me a lower interest rate on my credit cards. At first, I thought maybe it was true. I got the credit card out that he had the last 4 numbers of and then said I didn't feel right about giving him my CC number and he hung up.

That's terrible but I would get down on my knees in gratitude if my mother had only lost $1-2,000. Before I retired, I traveled a great deal for the state and often stopped by her house about 50 miles away on my trips south. One day I happened to notice a water stain on the ceiling and told her she needed to get a roofer to check it out and fix the leak if necessary. A few days later my son in law called me and said she asked to borrow $1,000 to have the roof fixed. I was stunned. While I never would have called my parents rich, there was plenty of money for her to live well and leave a nice nest egg for my daughter and me. When the bare facts were laid out, we discovered she had been wiring large sums of money to a scumbag in Jamaica, based on the premise that she'd won a lottery but had to pay processing and courier fees. The sad conclusion was that she had nearly been busted for apparent money laundering and had squandered nearly half a million dollars on a colossal scam. Also though I was prepared to go to Jamaica and track down the asshole the FBI agent I spoke with told me it would be fruitless since there was no physical coercion and she had sent the money voluntarily. She died pennil as, but in a comfortable assisted living facility that I paid for. Please watch out for your parents, older family members and friends. My mother was a master at concealing the extent of her dementia until the house of cards collapsed.

Because we got many calls, we screened phone numbers, then used call blocking and other phone features to end the harassment. Verizon has a good process. It worked, no more calls from evil doers.

I got an urgent email from a young man who served on the board of a social services agency I chaired some years back. He is handicapped and was travelling in SE Asia which I was aware of. The email sounded ominous and asked for a substantial amount to spring him from jail. I immediately called his parents who assured me he was fine.

If it isn't a known number or ID, I just answer "Fraud Division." Usually stops there, except nowadays there are more and more robocalls with recorded messages.

My father-in-law received a call like that. He was 85 at the time. He had my sister-in-law keep them busy on the phone, and called his grandson on his cell phone to make sure all was well.

Great job, Grandpa!

My grandma actually fell for that scam, but she didn't lose that much money. It was a few months before she died, but she had no signs of dementia, so it shows that any elderly person is potentially vulnerable to such scams.

My dad almost fell for one of those IRS scams, until I showed him the information from the IRS website itself about those scams. The reason he nearly fell for it was that when he did his taxes before that incident, he actually did have to send the IRS a check.

As for myself, I've gotten the Microsoft "virus" scam, but I knew right away it was a scam, and I told them that the computer was being repaired. Fortunately for cell phones, there are those apps that block scammers so although they try that number, they don't get through. Also, with caller ID, I don't answer calls from area codes I don't recognize as they're usually new numbers being used by those scammers that the app hasn't quite picked up on.

Many of these scammers get info off your younger relatives Facebook sites. Way too many pic of family reunions and names , etc. Many already know grandsons name, aprox age, etc from too much extra info on Facebook. It's a goldmine for scammers.

Haven't gotten the desperate grand kid called but I kept getting the foreign guy/gal calling about there being a virus on my computer though.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2017 08:14PM by kativicky.

My step-dad got such a call, claiming to be from MY son.
He immediately asked why his supposed grandson didn't call ME (his dad).
The caller said he'd been unable to get a hold of me.
So while still on the land-line phone with the caller, he used his cell phone to call me and ask if this was real.
I let him know that his grandson was sitting right next to me, and wasn't stranded in Europe without any money. We then had a great time for about 30 seconds letting the caller know what a moron he was, before he hung up.

The scammers had done their homework. I later explained to my son how the information they used was all from things he had published to social media. Fortunately, she was leery from the start and didn't pay. They hung up on her.

Thus spake Mujun.

I would never be idiot enough to fall for such a scam.

I don't care anyway, as I have some serious money coming to me very soon.

You see, I've been in email contact with this deposed Nigerian prince...

One more thing to be aware, if scammers are using FB and other social media sites: Beware of profile and account cloning, both your own and of your friends. I usually send a message asking a question only that friend would know and they respond with "check out this link" or whatever and never answer the question. Report the profile, block, and warn the friend if it happens to be his or her account.

Yes. He said he was my grandson. I asked "Which one"?
Click.

I had one guy call me and tell me that I was going to be arrested in the morning. I asked him what for and he wouldn't say but said something about a lawyer. I told him I could call several relatives depending on the charge, from traffic court to business law to a state Supreme Court chief justice. If it was for weapons, I have access to Mitch Vilos. Then I told a lie: told him I could talk to my boss, Sean Reyes, Utah State Attorney General. Again, I asked him what was I to be arrested for.


Click.

Caller ID.
If they are not in my Contacts, or I do not recognize the area code, I do NOT answer.
(If it's someone I know or do business with, they will leave a message.)
I then go to my settings and "Block This Number".
Never been scammed once.

I have no children, much less grandchildren, so...

This scam is a variation of the Spanish prisoner and is as old as the hills.........much older than any of the grandpas or grandmas who have been called.

you can warn people and let them know this is a possibility, but most people only find out after they have been contacted.

you can tell (potential victims) to try this, or try that, but the awful thing about these is, they rely on getting people disoriented and concerned/worried, so its not even just a case of 'use your common sense'

its a shame we live in a world with so many scum

I have a friend who responded with "You missed my birthday, skipped Christmas, never thank me for anything I've given you.....They can keep you." Click