Please read and make note of these important safety tips and especially share them with senior citizens that you know so that they can be on guard.
• The suspect will call pretending to be a grandchild while stating that they have been arrested or in an accident and need money fast. • If it does not sound like the grandchild, they will say that there is a “bad connection” or hand the phone to an “attorney” or “police officer” if they believe that the victim is becoming suspicious. The scams can also be communicated via e-mail at times.
• Scammers will often try to obtain your grandchild’s name from the Internet but sometimes they will call pretending to be a police officer and ask what their grandchild’s name is directly.
• They will often ask the victim to wire money to satisfy court costs, accident costs, or to prevent your “grandchild” from being arrested or sued. They will often claim to be calling from another country.
• Some recent variations of this scam involve someone claiming to be holding your child or grandchild as a hostage while demanding cash. • Suspects may also ask for you to purchase gift cards and to either call back with or send photos of the cards’ redemption codes to cover the “costs.”
• Residents who receive these calls should hang up immediately and not provide any of their personal information. They should then contact their grandchild directly to check on them by phone.
• If you are a victim of this scam, you should contact the wire transfer company immediately, however, due to the nature of the wire transfers recovery of the funds can be very difficult. It also makes it very hard to catch the scammers as they often use prepaid cell phones that cannot be traced.
• If you receive a suspicious call and want to speak with an officer about it, please call 911.