Good for you, Sue! It really is sad how many people are falling for stuff like this. You have to wonder how these scammers can sleep at night.....

Lately I've been getting an evening call, with an area code 212, and when I answer he starts speaking in Spanish. duh

I'll not answer that anymore.

good for you. What a shame that people fall for this.
Very sad. Wish these people would use their imaginations
for good.

This one has been going on so long I am surprised they are still trying it. What low life worthless human being can do that to anyone much less to the elderly.
I really hope karma serves it up to them jumbo sized.
I keep my loud whistle by the phone and give them a good loud blast.

I had that happen about 3 months ago, but I got the boy's name. He started out by saying Hi Grandma this is your grandson--me Hi go on boy sniffle, sob I need money me why boy they are going to hurt me me--who boy I need money etc. me what is your name boy Jacob or something similar me oh gee I don't have any grandsons boy hung up I then called the local police and they advised me to call the state attorney general, which I did and gave them the phone number and the name he used. They keep track of these calls and were appreciative.
Then he called back about 3 hours later, and all I said, was who, what, when, why and he hung up. It was a very young sounding person. So, guess what I am saying you should report it so they can keep track of these scams. Our attorney general in ND is great on this and responding to other scams.

Glad you didn't fall for it. My BIL's friend sent $10,000 to bail out her "grandson." It's hard to imagine that anyone would fall for that.

Sue that happened to my father-in-law a month ago. Oddly, the young man called him GrandPop, which is what the kids do call him. But, a lucky guess? And identified himself as grandson Paul..... similar story, but in Florida... and only wanted 5000, etc etc. My FIL didn't fall for it either.

Terrible how these fools prey on older folks.... glad you didn't fall for it

I think after you hang up and dial Star 69 a voice will come on and give you the tel number that was just used. then you can look it up on google

A friend of ours Mother was called like this. She hung up on them. Then about a week later her inlaws were called. They fell for it. When they went to wire the money the lady at Western Union asked him about it. She said she could check it out for him before wiring the money. She did and it was indeed fake. They were wiring $7,000.

My neighbor fell for it a few months ago. She said it sounded just like her grandson but of course, when she answered the phone and he said, "Grandma?" she responded with his name. Soaked her for $4000. When she went to the store to wire the money the lady asked if if she was very, very sure and she said, "Oh yes". Very expensive lesson learned.

A friend of mine got the same call. She fell for it.
Fortunately, she doesn't have much money so didn't send
anything. Actually believed her grandson...who get this,
lives with her...was stuck in Italy. The kid doesn't have bus fare, let alone money to be in Italy. Can you spell
naive?

Wow, I've read to be aware of that type of scam but you actually experienced it...glad you caught on, good for you!

This will be interesting as we have no grandchildren...

I got something more polished. It was an email supposedly from one of my correspondents. It claimed he was in an extraordianry situation and needed $2000 to get home, and that he would pay me back when got home in a week.

The email appeared ligitimate. The 'from' address was correct and I could not discover if there was a hidden address. However, I could not find the source from which it had been sent.

I let the message lay for a week, heard nothing more and then deleted it.

My parents got the same call. Called her "Grandma" (not her "grandmother name") and my mom told him she had no grandsons. So - this is where the story changed.

He said her granddaughter (my mom GAVE him my daughter's name) was strung out on crack and heroin and needed $4000 to go into rehab. My mom kept asking his name, etc., but he wouldn't give it to her. She finally hung up.

A few minutes later my parents called me, CONVINCED my daughter was strung out on drugs. I hate people who prey on older folks, and I hate that my parents believed my kid was a druggie. :/

Unfortunately this scam does work, or the scammers wouldn't continue to do it. I see it mentioned in the newspapers sometimes, but I think there should be more alerts to call attention to it. Computer users are probably more aware of it, so I would be curious to know if those who do fall for it are those who don't have/use computers, and that is probably the older generation.

I think no matter what name you give the caller, he will say that is his name, and if you ask for his name, no doubt he will not give you his real name.

I had a similar call several months ago, so when this one came I was ready for him, and played along until I had him on the hook.

I posted about it as a Memory Refresher, and hope all of you will mention this scam to any older people you know.

Spread the word!

Sue

I got a call similar to that too and I said "Oh my gosh, the same thing is happening to me and I was just about ready to call YOU for money"! All I heard was the "click"! LOL!

I gotta a call yest. wanting to "give" me and DH a trip to Orlando for $189. I just started laughing and told the guy that when things were too good to be true, they usually were. He asked me if I'd ever done this before, and I told him yes, to Colorado. DH says why do I even talk to them. I don't know why I do, but it's best just to hang up. I wonder how many people fall for that--the trip we took to Colorado taught us!! After their sales pitch they were the rudest people. LOL

Unless these people have 25 grand kids, I can't understand how anyone would fall for this and not recognize their own GKs. .

I think most of these calls come from Africa or Russia. My husband had an email sent out to all his people on his Hotmail account saying he was on a business trip in London and was mugged and needed $3000 to get things straightened out. I didn't get the email, but many others did and one or two actually responded emailing Husband to see if he was okay. People are SO naive. This happened twice to him.

That happened to a friend's mother. His mother called him and said that the grandson was in Canada and needed money to get out of trouble. The son (the boy's father) was actually on his way to wire money when it finally dawned on him to call his son. His son was at work. I couldn't believe he almost fell for it. The poor grandma was really upset. The only good news is that she no longer has a drivers license so she couldn't easily get to her money.

Thanks for posting Sue. I think everyone needs to know what scams are out there. I noticed at my bank they have some posters up about questioning wiring money to people you don't know (Nigerian scams, lotto winners) etc. etc.

I hope we can all remember to get this message across to those who are the most apt to "help" a DGS. The scammers know that the elderly are the most likely to be generous and caring, and are vulnerable. I am elderly, but fortunately not that easy to fool.

And it works often enough to be profitable for them.

I'm glad to know that Western Union and others are picking up on this now, and hopefully stopping some from losing their money.

Sue

I've had quite a few offers to send me some - usually at least one, often several millions.

Had I added them all, I thought some time ago that it must have been a billion... now, more'n likely my share'd be a billion.

What on earth would I do with so much money?

ole joyfuelled