SUNDRE — A local couple narrowly avoided being conned out of $9,000 after being targetted by what appears to be a grandparents scam.
Luckily for them, they didn’t end up sending the callers a dime thanks to the help and advice from employees at their bank, who quickly became concerned and raised the alarm when the couple explained what was happening.In the grandparents scam, someone phones an elderly couple whom the fraudsters have learned are grandparents.
They then tell one or both of the grandparents that they’re in big trouble — usually claiming to have been arrested or the victim of a robbery, and that they need a large amount of money immediately.
“It’s not something that ever slowed down. It’s actually picked up over the years,” Cpl. Resus Organ, acting commander of the Sundre RCMP detachment, said about the scam.
“Don’t ever send money to anybody you’ve met over the internet or over phone, or anybody claiming to be anybody,” Organ said on Thursday, May 20 during.
“Because that’s not how the government works,” he said.
“Nobody ever calls nowadays, they put an officer on your doorstep” if there's a legitimate issue, he said, adding the Canada Revenue Agency also does not place such calls.
Voice sounded familiar
In the Sundre couple’s case, they received such a call on Tuesday, May 18. The Albertan agreed to withhold their names for confidentiality.
They figured the person calling really was their grandchild because the voice did sound so familiar, and the particulars of where she lived were genuine. The caller apologized for the state of her voice and said she had a cold.
She was crying, said she had been arrested and needed $9,000 immediately. Meanwhile, the caller said she was being held in custody.
She said she was getting a ride home from a friend who was driving her boyfriend’s car. They were stopped by police to check for drinking and driving because they ran a red light. She said police found a gun in the vehicle.
She offered to bring a police officer to the phone. When a male voice got on the line, he repeated the story and said the money needed to be provided in cash only. He gave the grandmother a number to call, saying a person on the line would answer “RCMP.”
Both the “granddaughter” and “police officer” told the grandparents that they’d get their money back after a court hearing on Monday.
The grandmother asked to talk to the girl’s father, but was told that couldn’t be done due to a court order.
Bank staff step in
The couple then went to their bank and told employees they needed to take $9,000 from a couple of accounts because it was so much money.
That immediately alerted staff. A bank official phoned the number the “police officer” gave the couple, which turned out to be a New Brunswick number.
Further research determined that no one with the granddaughter’s name was in custody at the police station she was allegedly in.
Police also told the bank official that bail money does not only have to be provided in cash, nor would it be that much in this case.
An RCMP officer in Sundre looked up the number they were given and confirmed it was not an RCMP number.
At the bank official’s suggestion, the grandmother phoned her granddaughter. Sure enough, her granddaughter had not been arrested and did not even have a cold.
The grandmother was amazed by how convincing the call was.
“This wasn’t a call from out of the country or anything,” she said. “They knew our phone number and our names.”
They knew the granddaughter's name.
The Sundre police officer told them that scammers are sophisticated. They go online and do lots of research to make their stories seem plausible, looking up grandparents and their grandchildren’s names as well as details about them.
They can also use numbers that are local in order not to arouse suspicion.
“My granddaughter called the number,” the grandmother said. “She called it and called it and called it. And finally some girl answered she said, and she did have some kind of a cough or something and she hung up.”
The granddaughter called the number several more times. Finally, a male voice answered.
'I've got your money'
“She said, ‘I’ve got your money.' And he said, ‘Well why don’t you just take it and stuff it up your a...’ and hung up,” the grandmother said.
“I thought, ‘Holy mackerel. We nearly came up with $9,000 to pay this guy,’” she added.
“I never even thought that this was not true or I could have asked some questions that she probably couldn’t answer, but I didn’t think to do that because I thought it was true.”
Olds RCMP Cpl. Courtney Harding was alarmed to hear the details of this case, adding any such calls should be reported to police and the Canadian Anti Fraud Centre.
“The case of someone calling to pretend to be a police officer is serious, and should also be reported to police,” she wrote in an email.
Cpl. Harding also said no one should ever provide personal information over the phone. Nor should they ever buy gift cards or crypto currency if asked to do so in exchange for services.
“A police officer would never call anyone requesting funds be sent or ask for personal banking information,” she added.
Organ also cautions people to be aware of other fraudulent attempts to deceive people into sending large sums of money, such as what is known as the lonely hearts scam, in which a con artist invests time establishing an online relationship with a victim and eventually requests money once trust has been established.
“Don’t ever send money to anybody you’ve met over the internet or over phone, or anybody claiming to be anybody,” he said.
“No what-ifs — don’t give money to anybody.”
Anyone who remains concerned by a convincing call that has left them worried, is instead urged to follow up with police, who can confirm whether someone was actually taken into custody.
— With files from Simon Ducatel
