Thread: Your Grandson is arrested and he needs you to send money to get him out of jail!

This is one that has been used against the elderly quite a lot because they are hard of hearing.

Someone calls them pretending to be their grandson. They use an unclear line so it's hard for the victim to hear and can easily get confused. They say that the police have arrested him on false charges and that you need to send money right away or wire transfer or even pay by credit card. Sometimes they will say that they are in another country and the money needs to be sent Western Union. The victim is so upset that their grandson is in trouble that they sometimes fall for it. Please warn your parents about this one!

I can easily see someone being fooled by this one. They play on your emotions and get you upset so you are not thinking clearly. This is a greater motivator than the scams that involve greed. I can easily seeing my own parents falling for this. My mother is quite hard of hearing and would do anything for her grandchildren. I'm going to talk to them about this next time I see them.

My grandfather got a call that his grandson was in jail and his grandson was sitting right next to him! The elderly get targeted by phone so much. I'm amazed how many calls my grandpa gets that have nothing to do with him. Things like, how to lower interest rates on credit cards he doesn't have.

Yeah I've had someone call my grandma before with a similar request. Though it was a less believable story, something along the line of "I'm your distant relative from <Insert Country>. I've heard so many stories about you from my family and want to visit you. We are a poor family though, can you donate anything so I can meet you at last?"

My grandma keeps in contact with all her relatives, close and distant, so she really wouldn't find such a call believable. There are still people out there who might have distant relatives, but seriously, how many numbers would a scammer have to call to find one that would believe this?

I can see this happening, except...wouldn't most people find it fishy if said "grandson" never mentioned his name? What if the person on the receiving end has more than one grandson?

This is a variation of the popular email scam that continues to get into people's wallets. You get an email pretending to be someone you know that is stuck in somewhere in the world because they were robbed and they need help to get home. They lay it on thick and get people to wire them money.

I don't know of anyone that had been in this situation, but I agree that it is happening or has happened to some people. I guess in this kind of situation, the person who got the call should make sure to ask important questions about his/her "grandson/granddaughter" like, what is his or her complete name, who are his or her parents, or anything that would authenticate the story.

Even though many people are unfortunately easily scammed, the elderly are easier targets. The only defense to that is for an older person to have someone in charge of their finances. Unfortunately, that person can also sometimes be untrustworthy.