Warning about scams on the elderly....

**cab54** · 11-14-2008, 02:08 PM

Well, it happened to my MIL. Night before last. They posed as my adult son and bilked her out of $6000.

First phone call (from my son last night--he's out west) "Mom, what's going on with grandma? She left two messages on my phone about western union and some other stuff. Didn't make any sense to me. Is something going on with grandpa? (he's been sick in the nursing home). " I said well, I hadn't talked to her today, but he said he had called her home and couldn't get her. I said call her on her cell, here's the #. He calls her, then calls me back.

Second call from ds--well grandma said someone called her from Canada and she thought it was me (they said hi grandma) and that they were up there (Canada) fishing with a friend and had wrecked a rental car, and couldn't get back in the USA without paying off the court costs, and for the car. They also told her 'not to tell mom and dad about this' (ds would have called US for the money, if he needed it, and he has no big secrets from us--that's just not like him). I'm like....Oh, NOOO, she's been scammed!. DS said yeah she has, we need to call the cops.

I call MIL---said I heard what happened. She say yeah they got me for $6K, and now I wish I had asked them things first, like what my dog's name is, or something about the family only my grandkids would know.......I told her I might have done the same thing were it me. She said it didn't sound like J__ (my son)some of the time, but that the call being from Canada, she just thought it was the distance. Anyway, I urged her to call the police, and she did and they took a statement and said it has happened to about 50 people in our area alone. All the money was wired to Canada. Older folks. Whomever it is does their homework, and is skillful at deception.

I called my own mom today and warned her about it, and she said they had an article about that in the last AARP publication she got. Described some of the same types of scams. My son went to work researching on the internet, and he also read a lot about similar scams.

Warn your older relatives!!

**ktsmama** · 11-14-2008, 03:42 PM

Thanks for the warning. People are just sick!

**Lori Biever-Launder** · 11-14-2008, 04:30 PM

This was in our local paper as well.

I personally got an email from a friend who said she was in Canada and needed money to get home because her purse had been stolen. The trouble is...I KNOW she was in Israel (where she lives with her DH and three kids) at the time this was sent!

The next day, her DH emailed me and their other friends and said this was a scam.I thought it was interesting that she was supposedly in Canada! FWIW, as soon as I read the email, I KNEW it wasn't from Alena because she's very well read and her letters are free of grammatical errors and spelling typos. This email was FILLED with them! LOL

**nancycg56** · 11-14-2008, 04:38 PM

I'm sorry for your MIL ~ these people are despicable!

**Texasgirl** · 11-14-2008, 04:47 PM

They should hang people that do this.

I bet it is going to get worse in the future.

**cab54** · 11-14-2008, 09:26 PM

Luckily, my IL's are well off enough that they won't have to eat dog food from here on...... still---what a rip off!

And I'm thinking about the people whom this kind of trick would truly leave destitute! It's despicable!

**rainbowgc** · 11-15-2008, 11:40 AM

I think this is one reason we should teach all seniors to use the net and set them up with access to fraud information. The net is the 1st place that these kind of things are first reported. I feel so very sorry for the woman who was taken

**katybug** · 11-15-2008, 12:56 PM

I've heard about this scam, despicable!

You know, if you have older relatives, or just family spread out, you might want to call a family meeting and get your heads together so something like this doesn't happen. We used to have this silly little thing when my sister and I were young. Like if we were staying in a hotel and my parents wanted to go out and get something and leave us alone in the room, we had a "password" so we knew the people knocking were my parents.

Have a family "password" so you know it is them. If everyone knows about it, they won't mind using it, but if you ask the "scammer family member" for it, more then likely they will just hang up.

I think I need to talk to my parents about it, not for them, but for my grandparents. Hum.

KB

**Lilolme** · 11-15-2008, 04:29 PM

Mercy, this is horrible. I know scams like this have been going on for some time but I fear it is only going to get more prevalant and worse with our economy.

I'm so sorry to hear this happened to your family.