Niamh Shackleton
A grandmother received an unexpected scam call asking that she forked out $5,000 to have her grandson released from jail — but little did the scammers know, her grandson was in the same house as her at the time.
Sadly, scam calls aren't uncommon and senior citizens are typically targeted.
Just recently a warning was issued to Apple Pay users following reports of users being contacted about supposed suspicious activity from their accounts or that their account was locked and being investigated.
One woman nearly fell victim to the scam and almost withdrew $15,000 from her account before a bank teller overheard her phone call and told her to hang up.
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In a similar instance, Crysta Willis, from Cleveland, Ohio, was asked to pay $5,000 to get her grandson out of jail.
Speaking to Cleveland 19, Crysta recalled what was said to her on the phone.
"He says, 'I’m the deputy somebody and your grandson was in an accident. He’s at fault and you need to pay his bond for him to get out'," she said.
If she paid 5000 bucks then her grandson supposedly would not be held in jail over the weekend.
But Crysta knew that the grandson the scammer was referring was safe and well because he was in the same house as her at the time.
With this in mind, she decided to get her own back.
"I’m thinking to myself in the back of my head, this is going to be really cute because I know for sure my grandson is upstairs. But I’m gonna go with this," Crysta shared.
She proceeded to try get information from the scammer, such as his name. He also failed to tell her which sheriff's office he was contacting her from.
Crysta also 'went off' on the scammer over the phone and berated him for trying to scam senior citizens like herself. He tried to defend himself by saying that it was his 'job'.
The grandmother said: "He was like ‘This is my job’ and I was like, ‘This is your job, scamming? This is how you want to feed your family?’ Then I just went off on him."
Supposedly Crysta was on the phone telling him off for a good 10 minutes.
Susan Licate with the FBI Cleveland office has spoken out in light of Crysta's experience and explained that criminals target grandparents like her to make them feel obliged to help their grandchild.
She shared: "Maybe they’re arrested. Maybe they’ve been in an accident, or perhaps stranded on the side of the road and need money, and they need money now. And that’s when the scam starts."
Licate went on to advise: "That first call that you make should be to the person who is purported to be in trouble to verify if they are in fact stranded on the side of the road in the hospital, in jail, or have been detained or arrested or whatnot. And if you can’t reach that person, say it is the grandchild, call the parent or another. Family member that may be able to verify and vouch for their health and safety."