Telephone scam popping up in Canada & USA

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Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 2:25 pm

I am not sure whether this has been mentioned here before but I wanted to post a heads up, and see if the braintrust can come up with a way to work these guys over.

People have been calling numbers and asking for "granma" (or Grandpa)

Upon getting an elderly person, they will say something along the lines of "Hi grandma, it's me."

The response to which is usually "Derek?? You don't sound like yourself"

Which gives the scammer a name to work from.

From there the scam is perpetuated.

Derek tells Gran that he has been caught in a very embarassing situation (caught in a brothel, Stopped for DUI, etc.) and needs money to make bail. He's afraid of his parents finding out, and begs Gran to keep the situation to herself, she's the only one he can trust. He doesn't sound like himself because he's a) been partying all night, b) been crying over his arrest, c) been beat up by the cops, etc.

Gran gets instructions to send the bail cash to an account immediately via our friends at WU. So he can make bail.

The best defense against this scam in your family is knowledge - tell your old folks to call the parents no matter what if they get a call like this. Second is to let people know when you are home. Usually this scam is run telling folks the jailbird is in a foreign location.

What I don't know is whether the scammers have call lists from someplace with DOB info on them, or if they are randomly trolling the phonebooks.

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 2:56 pm

This "Granny scam" has been around for a while. One of our local news broadcasts did a report on them several months ago. In the case they highlighted, the grandfather went to Wal-Mart to send a Moneygram, and the clerk suggested he call the grandson's cell phone or his parents before sending the money, explaining that it might be a scam.

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