The “grandparent scam” call to Jennifer Kiefaber’s grandfather sounded just true enough that he was nearly taken in by a cruel con that rips off older Americans to the tune of about $42 million a year.
The scam tries to trick elderly residents into believing their grandchildren or other loved ones have been thrown in jail, kidnapped or are facing some other peril that requires an immediate wire transfer of money or even an iTunes gift card.
Clever con artists use sophisticated technology that includes recordings pretending to be the ransomed grandchild’s voice, making the calls seem frighteningly real.
In the case of Kiefaber’s grandfather, the scammers tried to extort bail money for her cousin, his grandson, who was supposedly jailed in Japan.
“The scary thing was, they knew that he was in the military overseas in Japan,” Kiefaber, a Woodstock-Towne Lake Patch reader, wrote on Facebook after we asked readers if they’d had experience with the scam.
Her grandfather “freaked out,” she wrote.
Fortunately, before he wired any money overseas, he called Kliefaber’s father, who handled his bank accounts.
“We dodged that one,” she said.
But a lot of people don’t.
Barnegat-Manahawkin Patch reader Carol Breitweiser Essig says she knows someone who lost $6,000 in the grandparent scam. That’s a lot of money, but not nearly the amount that one Pennsylvania woman told the Senate Special Committee on Aging her parents lost — more than $80,000.
‘Simple, Yet Very Devious’
Typically, con artists extort a few hundred dollars at a time in what the Senate committee estimates is a $42 million annual haul from the grandparents scam. Overall, financial scams cost older Americans $3 billion every year, the committee estimates.
The grandparent scam is “simple, yet very devious” in that it “exploits that relationship a grandparent has with a grandchild,” Randy Brauer of the National Council on Aging told Patch for a story last year. Older Americans are a target of choice among con artists, partially because they’re seen as vulnerable, but primarily because of the perception “they’re sitting on piles of money,” Brauer said.
Related: Scammers Scare, Extort Millions From Your Aging Parents
Patch National Editor Todd Richissin happened to be at his mother’s house in the Cleveland area not long ago and intervened in a call that claimed her grandson, Richissin’s nephew, had been arrested for getting drunk and striking a pregnant woman with his car.
It was a lie, and his mother was skeptical, until someone claiming to be Richissin’s nephew came on the line. Scammers use sophisticated technology that includes recordings of the supposedly ransomed grandchild’s voice, making the calls seem frighteningly real.
“The scammers do this so their targets are isolated,” Richissin said. “The guy calling claimed he was from the courts and if my mom sent him money, he could get my nephew in a diversion program to keep him out of jail.
“Bless mom, she was skeptical but still nervous because of the person on the call claiming to be my nephew. How good are these scammers? When my mom mentioned my nephew sounded funny, the scammers had their lie ready: He bashed his nose on the steering wheel during the crash, they told her, and it was broken.”
Richissin’s mother put him on the phone.
“The guy was good,” he said, “but not convincing.”
Now, she checks the caller ID and lets the answering machine pick up when she doesn’t recognize the number.
“Make them leave a message so you can screen,” Richissin told his mom. “If you answer the phone when these scammers call, you set yourself up for more calls because they know they have a working number.”
Create A Family ‘Safe Word’
Sachem Patch reader Christina Giugliano and her family came up with a way to stay a step ahead of scammers in the event her grandmother is targeted again.
“My grandpa got hit with this and almost gave the money, then got nervous and frantically called everyone in our family to verify someone wasn’t actually injured,” Giugliano wrote. “We decided to have a ‘safe word’ so if this ever happens again, he has to ask what is the safe word — and if they don’t know it, he’ll know it isn’t real.”
Oak Forest Patch reader Deanna Papesh said her mom got the broken nose excuse, too.
“They told her that her grandson was drunk driving after a funeral in Indiana and got into a car accident and now needed bail money,” Papesh wrote. “They even put someone on the phone that said ‘Grandma?’ and claimed he broke his nose, which is why he sounded different.”
Newtown Patch reader Danielle Hudson said her grandmother ultimately didn’t fall for the emotional blackmail but was unnerved by the amount of detail the caller had about her grandson.
Hudson’s grandmother responded just how experts advise.
“Thankfully, she was smart enough to call my aunt who was with him at the time to verify,” Hudson wrote. “But she was definitely upset to get the ‘news’ until she realized that she wouldn’t be the emergency contact if he was actually in an accident.”
The scammers tried to exploit the bond between Pam Weber’s 93-year-old mother-in-law and her grandson. Supposedly, he had been arrested for drunken driving and needed money, but he did not want her to tell his parents.
“Lucky, she called her granddaughter who is a cop and avoided the scam,” Weber wrote on Patch’s national Facebook page. “She has had several additional calls since then, too. She’s luckily no longer a target for this scam — hope I’m as sharp as she is when I’m her age.”
Sachem Patch reader Nicholas Degen said his father figured out he was being played but not quickly enough and was “taken advantage of for quite a bit of money.”
“He was in the process of sending a second payment but shortly after realized what was really going on and was able to stop it in time,” Degen wrote.
Why It’s Hard To Prosecute
For every one cybercriminal successfully prosecuted, another 10 either get off completely or with a warning, Roger A. Grimes, a columnist for CSO, wrote in a recent blogpost on CSO Online, a division of IDG Communications that provides news analysis and research on security and risk management.