Re: Grandparents scam

CANDLEQUEEN · ‎03-09-2010

I have read about these scams, and yesterday I just read another scam, where let's say you are on social media to meet a significant other, and you meet someone from Africa, and then they invite you to visit and you get engaged, all the while unbeknown to you they already have a wife/husband and once you agree to get married, they divorce their spouse move to the U.S. and as soon as they get their green card, they divorce them and move their former spouse over here and get re-married. All the while the U.S. had no idea of their plans....Isn't that crazy??It made me think of my neighbor who is very nice but very gullible, he met a woman on a website from Guatemala, and he went there a few times and came back a couple of months ago engaged to her.She has now moved here, and doesn't speak English and is about 25 years his junior....HMMM! Not sure where this is going, but hopefully for him it ends well.......

cookinfreak · ‎03-31-2010

My dad is in a nursing home now. The facility he is in, he progressed from independent living, to assisted living and then the nursing home. He knew he was getting dementia just before we had to move him to an apartment. We found out that someone from his church had sold him "vitamins" that would reverse his condition. It was thousands of dollars. Luckily we got the checks stopped but did have to threaten this "christian" man with legal action. Then I stopped over one day during the week to take him to a dr appt and there was a man in the lobby trying to get ahold of my dad and said it was some "financial" issues my dad had called him about and wanted to discuss with him. (They had the system that you called their phone, and they would buzz you in). When I opened the door, the man had disappeared. So glad the timing worked out on that. My dad was so upset that he was losing his memory he was willing to listen to all kinds of promises and spend all kinds of money.

Our generation has to remember that people didn't scam others in their day and I think that is why a lot of these older people fall for scams. They just don't believe that others could be so evil.

cookin

gonnab · ‎03-10-2010

It's reall easy to get scammed. I'm 80 yrs old, fully capable to take care of myself. But I have been the recipient of two different scam attempts. One was a call from the "IRS", telling me I owed back taxes. - very threatening call and it was scary. Hung up on them, reported the call to my State Attorney's Office, but this person called back several times. Interesting that she called from a different phone each time so that I couldn't recognize the caller ID. The second attempted scam was a call from "your UPS deliverer" notifying me that he had found my ATM card and if I gave him the numbers to verify, he would return it to me. Strange thing though - he called from Tenn. I live in CT and have never been to Tenn!!!!!!

curlywhitedog · ‎03-09-2010

@jaxs mom wrote:
I'm shocked anyone would fall for that. I'd honestly question their competence to take care of their own affairs.

My mother, may God rest her soul, is one of those people who would have wired money. She was neither incompetent nor incapable of handling her own affairs, she was just someone born during a different era, an era when people weren't as duplicitious as they are today, an era during which dishonesty was not as pronounced.

Those of us who have learned to be wary learned it from life experiences which are different from the life experiences of what today's seniors lived through in a "long ago world".

IMHO you are only incompetant when you have experiences that you don't learn from.

Maria

missy1 · ‎03-10-2010

My parents got the call. They did not fall for the scam.

haddon9 · ‎03-09-2010

Sorry to hear that this happened to your MIL!

It's easy to think & wonder how could anyone get sucked into such a scam but when one is thrown off guard I can understand how it cold happen. Particularly to the elderly who are more vulnerable.

My mother who is suspicious by nature received a similar call several years ago. The caller claimed he was her grandson and even knew the correct name (my son's name) and said he was in a foreign country and needed funds for some reason (which I can't remember). Since my mother is suspicious she asked him a few questions and the call ended with him hanging up. She told me that he sounded different.

Just yesterday I received two scam type of calls...one was a recording from the IRS saying they were suing me & I should call this number, blah, blah, blah...but it was only a recording and I couldn't actually speak to the caller to let them know that I was an attorney (I'm not) and was going to send the IRS after them.

I also got a call from "Ontario". I had Googled the number ...you can do this to see if others have gotten calls from the same number...and it turned out it was Microsoft scammers. So the second time they called I answered the phone with "Hello Microsoft?...are you coming over to help me with my computer problems?"...they hung up!

I can't stand all of these annoying calls! I've been getting more lately and will have to look into getting our number off the list again if it's possible.

haddon9 · ‎03-09-2010

@gonnab wrote:
It's reall easy to get scammed. I'm 80 yrs old, fully capable to take care of myself. But I have been the recipient of two different scam attempts. One was a call from the "IRS", telling me I owed back taxes. - very threatening call and it was scary. Hung up on them, reported the call to my State Attorney's Office, but this person called back several times. Interesting that she called from a different phone each time so that I couldn't recognize the caller ID. The second attempted scam was a call from "your UPS deliverer" notifying me that he had found my ATM card and if I gave him the numbers to verify, he would return it to me. Strange thing though - he called from Tenn. I live in CT and have never been to Tenn!!!!!!

Ha!! I've gotten those "IRS" calls several times!

If someone had called to let me know that they had my ATM card I would have thanked them and said I'm calling my bank ASAP to cancel the card & get a new one...what nerve!

cookinfreak · ‎03-31-2010

If someone called & said they had my ATM card and asked me for the numbers on it, I would've said "You read them back to me, and I'll let you know if that's my card" or "How can I read them back if you have my card?"

Too bad these people don't use their brains for good instead of evil

cookin

chrystaltree · ‎05-10-2010

@gonnab wrote:
It's reall easy to get scammed. I'm 80 yrs old, fully capable to take care of myself. But I have been the recipient of two different scam attempts. One was a call from the "IRS", telling me I owed back taxes. - very threatening call and it was scary. Hung up on them, reported the call to my State Attorney's Office, but this person called back several times. Interesting that she called from a different phone each time so that I couldn't recognize the caller ID. The second attempted scam was a call from "your UPS deliverer" notifying me that he had found my ATM card and if I gave him the numbers to verify, he would return it to me. Strange thing though - he called from Tenn. I live in CT and have never been to Tenn!!!!!!

The difference is you saw through the foolishness within 10 seconds because neither scenario could possibly have been true. They make 1000 calls like that and 997 people do just what you did. But they are just looking for the 3 who will fall for the scam.

CouponQueen · ‎10-21-2010

Several years ago we used an attorney for some financial matters. About two months ago .. I received an email from that attorney asking me for $2500 he was stuck in an other country..stuff stolen, need air line tickets. I would get the money back asap.. etc..

The scammers must of hacked his email account but what cracked me up is they take long shots..not realizing he wasn't my friend "Dave.." yes David was his name but we called him Mr.....