Grandma Help Me!
Hi Leslie,
I've enjoyed your presentations and want to share this experience.
Last month my 80-yr old mother took $900 to a Western Union in
Maryland and wired it to a women in Peru. My "son" had called her
from "jail" in Florida, where he lives, and needed the bail money.
His "attorney" got on the phone and said that my son did not want
his parents to know, but trusted her to help him. My mom is a
Wellesley graduate, retired business owner, and not suffering from
any impairment of her reasoning. Luckily my son called me after she
called him, and I got her to cancel the wire transfer and then took
her to the Western Union office to get her money back. She filed a
police report but I'm sure nothing will come of it. The phone number
was a cell number from Montreal (probably pre-paid). My mom said she
asked a lot of questions of the "attorney" and really thought it had
been my son on the phone.
I showed her this article which made her feel better
http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/Crimes/Telemarketing/Outbound/Minor/assistance.htm
I'd like more people to be aware of this scam. The grandmas in the
article had the same experience, were not dummies, but two of them
really thought their grandsons had called them in an emergency, and
one of them did not get her money back.
My question is why Western Union does not take more care in
processing these. They could let their offices know that if an 80-yr
old women comes in with $900 in cash to wire to South America or
Canada maybe they should ask if it's for a relative in distress, and
have they checked with anyone in their family to verify it. Or, as
they are a for-profit corporation, they make money on the fees and
if you're scammed it's your problem. The scammers are making money
for them as well. I never knew that you could wire money to Delores
DeScammer in Peru and she could show up at any Western Union office
in that country with a fake ID and walk away with untraceable cash.
The "attorney" said they could not accept a credit card, only debit
or a money transfer.
This hit home just how good these con artists are.
Regards,
Steve