MysteryJen Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 I just wanted to let people know about a phone scam that involves grandparents. Saturday morning my mom received a call from "ds1" who was in jail in Las Vegas and needed bond money. "ds1" said he had a broken nose (which is why he didn't sound like him) and had a case number and a "public defender" who would call her. She called dh who talked to the "public defender" and got a place to wire money for bond. He was incredibly convincing. Ds1 was on fall break and was supposed to be in a another (far away from Las Vegas) city with his gf and her family. Because we were freaked out and not thinking very straight and my mom insisted she talked to him, we were about to wire money when dh decided to call him. So he called and ds1 was exactly where he said he would be. Total and complete scam aimed at my mother. She was completely taken in and frankly, the "public defender" was very, very convincing. Thank goodness she called us. Please talk to grandparents and your young adults. This was a perfect example why young adults should let people know where they are if they are going on vacation and grandparents need to involve parents, so someone has some knowledge of whereabouts and activities. These people were incredibly convincing. My mom was completely taken in and she is pretty with it and aware of phone scams on elderly. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 (edited) The grandchild scam has been around for a long time and is fairly prevalent. We have it in Germany too. A giveaway that helps detect the call is scam: the caller refers to the young person as "grandson" or "granddaughter", not by the actual name - until the grandparent says "Oh, Jimmy". A variant of the scam is the caller pretending to be the grandchild "Hey grandma, this is your grandson" - until she says "Oh, Jimmy" and then he knows that is the name to use. So: first thing is to ask for the name. Edited October 17, 2016 by regentrude 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitten18 Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 My FIL received that same scam call last year during spring break time. 😠Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luuknam Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 The grandchild scam has been around for a long time and is fairly prevalent. We have it in Germany too. A giveaway that helps detect the call is scam: the caller refers to the young person as "grandson" or "granddaughter", not by the actual name - until the grandparent says "Oh, Jimmy". A variant of the scam is the caller pretending to be the grandchild "Hey grandma, this is your grandson" - until she says "Oh, Jimmy" and then he knows that is the name to use. So: first thing is to ask for the name. These days though it wouldn't be rocket science for a scammer to match someone's phone number with the name of an actual grandchild. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 (edited) These days though it wouldn't be rocket science for a scammer to match someone's phone number with the name of an actual grandchild. But they typically don't go to the trouble. Edited October 17, 2016 by regentrude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3 ladybugs Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 How scary! So glad it was figured out before it couldn't be undone! I got an email this weekend from "Paypal" saying I paid 125,00 euros for something or other. I freaked out and logged into my Paypal account (on another computer and going directly to their site) and found out it was a scam. Freaked me out. Now I have all the security features in place that PayPal has the option for. We are still monitoring our account though. Some scams can get the best of us! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenaj Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 These days though it wouldn't be rocket science for a scammer to match someone's phone number with the name of an actual grandchild. My mom got this scam. She has 12 grandsons and about five of them are olders teens. The scammer actually used the name of one of her grandsons. We questioned her on this, but my dad was listening to the phone call and they both swear that they never said any names during the call. We believe her because there was no reason that she would pick the grandson that the scammer was using as that particular grandson was still in high school at the time and there were several older ones where it would be more logical for the scam to apply. Anyway, be careful because some of them seem to be linking names to the scam. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MysteryJen Posted October 17, 2016 Author Share Posted October 17, 2016 My mom swears the scammer used ds1's name before she said anything. But who knows? Dh was particularly incensed by the "public defender." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommyoffive Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 I have heard of this scam before. I am so glad you guys didn't fall for it. I hate bad people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73349 Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 Depending on the last names (and privacy settings), it may be possible to get the name from Facebook. And if the child's first name happens to be popular in that age group, it could also be a guess. The top boys' names in 1999 were Jacob, Michael, Matthew, Joshua, Nicholas, Christopher, and Andrew, and all were in the top 10 for at least 2 years before and after, adding up to about 10% of boys a year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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