The Crying Teenager Phone Hoax

If you have been reading my retirement blog, Baby Boomer Retirement, you may recall the article I wrote about a dear friend of mine who received a call from her grandson in January, 2012.  He was crying hysterically, and told her that he had been in a car accident.  The accident had been his fault, there had been a sealed bottle of vodka in the car, and he had damaged a rental car full of foreign tourists.  He was crying so hard that she could hardly understand him, so he handed the phone over to his lawyer.

The lawyer explained that if her grandson paid a fine and reimbursed the foreigners for their out-of-pocket expenses, the judge had agreed to drop the charges.  All the grandmother needed to do was wire $4000 to a foreign bank account and when the money wire was confirmed, everything would be fine.

My friend then asked to talk some more with her grandson, who was still crying hysterically.  He begged his grandmother not to tell his parents.  She wanted more information, so he gave her the number of the prosecuting attorney's office in the courthouse.  She called that number, and confirmed everything.  Then, after discussing it with her husband, she went to the bank, took out $4000, took the cash to a nearby Western Union office and wired the money to the car crash victims, who were now back in their hometown in the Dominican Republic.

The entire incident was a HOAX!

 My friend spoke to at least four different people, including her supposed "grandson" who was crying and difficult to understand every time he was on the phone with her.  All of them were involved in the scam.

When she finally reached her real grandson, she found out that he had not been in an automobile accident; he doesn't even own a car.  He was busy and working at a new job when all this was going on.  He had even called and left them a message that morning.  However, they were so wrapped up in responding to the hoax, that they didn't listen to their messages.

To make matters worse, my friend is a well-educated retired school teacher, and her husband is a retired parole officer.  They were both initially skeptical of the phone call, which is why they had insisted on calling the prosecuting attorney's office.  The scammers were prepared for that possibility, with another phone number that could be called and people able to pose as a receptionist and a prosecutor.

When the teenager originally called my friend, he simply said "grandma" and she responded with his first name.  After that, everyone knew his first name, and used it in the conversations.  When she called the "prosecutor's office" to ask more questions, she supplied his last name when she inquired about his court case.  The operation was so smooth, she didn't realize what was happening until it was over.

My friend took a long walk with me on the beach in February, a couple of weeks after this incident, and asked me to publicize what had happened to her and her husband.  She was embarrassed that she had been cheated, but she wanted to be sure that other people didn't fall victim to the same scam.  My friend and I live in an over-55 community, and we think that the scammers were intentionally pulling this hoax on people who live in our area and communities like it.  They were thorough and had obviously done their research.  Without a doubt, they must be making enough money from the scam to keep repeating it over and over again.

(This incident was originally described in the blog post: Baby Boomer Retirement: When Teenage Grandkids Call for Money.)

If you have had a similar experience with a phone scam, please share it with us.

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