Phone Scam Preying on the Elderly

To the Editor:

I wanted to take a moment to ensure that your readers are aware of an ongoing phone scam involving unscrupulous predators (I can think of other words — but this is a family-oriented newspaper) that has been out for sometime and was just applied successfully to my parents for a large sum (large for them) of money.

The perpetrators of the crimes call older people, claiming to be a grandchild or a law enforcement officer, and ask them to wire funds to help out with some type of legal problem the supposed relative has gotten into. In this case it was a car accident and my “niece” was scheduled to go to court in less than two hours.

The caller requested that the money to be transferred via a company that provides electronic funds transfer and called back to get the transaction reference number. To keep the scheme under wraps for as long as possible, the predators pretend to be embarrassed about her situation and ask that it be kept a secret.

Their boldness does not stop there — they then called back the next day, thanking my parents for the money and asking for more — thank goodness my mother told her that she should then call my brother as she could not do any more for her.

The scam apparently asks for amounts ranging from $2,000 to $85,000, according to some research I have done. Thankfully my parents were scammed at the lower range.

[Scammers] may be using Internet search engines to dig up information on individuals’ phone numbers (e.g. Whitepages.com) to get the basic information needed to prey on the elderly.

Please take a moment to speak with your parents, in-laws, and neighbors (if you have already done so, do so again.) to ensure that they are aware of this scam and to report any suspicious incidents to the police. I wish I had proactively informed them of this scam and did not assume my parents already knew.

Robert Licata

High Bridge Road, Sandy Hook                                         May 8, 2009