By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
SEPT. 14, 2021 | It was a new wrinkle we heard of recently: grandparents were thinking they were helping their granddaughter in a distant city, and did not recognize they were being scammed. Read on, so that you won’t be scammed.
A grandfather told this story: “How could we be so stupid! There were so many alarms where we failed to take notice. And I ended up giving a rank stranger, someone I didn’t know, lots of cash! I feel rotten, not so much about the money as it is my own stupidity!”
In relating this to a police officer, he was asked: “Did the guy you gave money to speak to you?”
“No. He never said a word.”
“Probably didn’t talk English,” the officer said. “I suspect you were dealing with the Russians. What did this man look like?”
“He was a white guy, relatively short, perhaps 5’7” or 5’8”, somewhat squat with a pudgy build. I can barely remember because the other guy, the one who initiated the call, had me on a portable phone and was pressuring me non-stop all the time. As his courier came to my house, he kept asking ‘Can you see him coming now?’ At first, I said no, but then he asked again and again, maybe five times, if I saw him coming. Then he started asking ‘Have you given him the money yet?’ asking this several times as the courier walked toward me, and even when I was handing the money to him. He kept up this constant pressure.
“I remember thinking ‘You are handing cash to someone you don’t know!’ while the guy on the phone was asking all this time over and over ‘Has he left yet?’, then ‘Can you still see him?’ several times, and finally I answered no. Then he switched, telling me: ‘Write down this number. This is your electronic receipt number,’ and I wrote down about a 10 digit number, which I realize now was useless. He kept the pressure up and I was distracted. I couldn’t think straight.”
The grandfather continued: “Two minutes later he was calling back saying he wanted to let our granddaughter talk to us again. (My wife had talked to who she thought was her earlier, but thought she sounded funny, as she did again.) The money was to be bail to keep her from going to jail. Now he asked could I get more cash (a big sum) right then, as he would represent her in court so she could enter a lawsuit against the city for an illegal arrest. I guess that’s when the alarm eventually went off. I said no to the money, and he got off the phone. Afterward, his phone after that was “no longer in service.”
Local police officials have heard this story before. One said: “Those people are so clever, so professional. They play on emotions. That grandfather was not the first. They make it sound so reasonable, having the “granddaughter” say that the grandparents should not call either her father or mother, for she would tell them later. And even making the grandparents think they were actually talking with her. All this began when the caller said their granddaughter was in an accident, but was not hurt and he would keep her out of jail.”
Police officials suggests to anyone getting such calls: “When something sounds a little different, be suspicious. Hang up on the scammer and immediately call your local police department. Remember they use keywords of ‘requiring cash’ and ‘must have immediately.’ That should set off alarms that something is amiss.”
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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