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Britt Erica Tunick is an award winning financial journalist who has spent the past 17 years writing about virtually every aspect of finance. She has mastered the art of boiling down complicated financial topics for readers to understand. |
The Grandparent Scam is finding its way back to the fraud books. Beware of the Grandparent Scam By Britt Erica Tunick As the world of fashion has demonstrated time and again, most styles and trends from the past will eventually re-emerge in one form or another. Unfortunately, the same can be said when it comes to fraud. If a specific tactic has succeeded for criminals in the past the odds are good it will be re-visited again. That is exactly what is happening with a phone scam known as the grandparent scam. Scammers who purchase large blocks of personal information about people will comb through this data and identify anyone in their late 60s or older the people most likely to be grandparents. Then they will call these individuals saying something like “Hi Grandma,” once the phone has been answered. Since people are often caught off guard when they pick up the phone, many people will respond by saying something like “Jack, is that you?” a response that automatically provides the criminal on the other end of the line with an identity. In most cases these people will claim that they are calling their grandparent because they are travelling and have gotten injured or into trouble with the police and will say that they are unable to reach their parents, or that they want to keep their trouble secret from their parents. Since the unfortunate reality is that many people don’t call their grandparents nearly enough, scammers are often able to convince the elderly that they are in fact a grandchild in need and to get them to wire over money to help. In some cases, more sophisticated scammers will look up an individual’s relatives online to learn specific details about their grandchildren through social media such as Facebook pages that make their calls all the more believable. Armed with such information, along with a claim such as “I’ve got a horrible cold and have lost my voice,” or “I broke my nose, so my voice may sound strange,” scammers can successfully bilk unsuspecting people out of thousands of dollars. And don’t be fooled by a call that appears to be coming in from a familiar phone number, as there are multiple ways that criminals are now able to disguise the numbers they are actually calling from. If you ever receive such a call or an e-mail, or if you have elderly people in your life who may be susceptible to such tactics, don’t immediately respond by wiring money or providing credit card information. Instead, the FBI suggests that you should resist the urge to act quickly; should try and contact your grandchild through a call you initiate or call another family member to determine whether they are truly in the location you have been told they are; and you should never wire money, as there is no way to get it back. |
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