There is a kind of scam preying particularly on the elderly and immigrants that’s been a lot in the news in Germany these last few years - apparently also in neighbouring countries; on my search for an English-languáge description I hit on this page from the Luxembourg police
I wonder if this is also a public issue in US and Canada?
Either a purported police officer calls and warns of a threat, like a burglar gang having been known to investigate the neighbourhood. For safekeeping of valuables the police officer will send a non-uniformed detective over to accept valuables for safe storage at the police station
or a police officer or court employee, or a close relative (so distraught that their voice is unrecognizable) calls: A child of the mark has caused a grave accident with details that alarm the mark, and to avoid imprisonment a large sum of bail must be paid to the court ASAP.
Marks are often the elderly (with diminished critical faculties) or immigrants (who do not know the German legal system enough to be able to call bullshit)
The callers skilfully induce and maintain stress and a sense of extreme urgency (one known method is to have a baby cry in the background, which inhibits clear thinking in a lot of people), keep the mark on the line in order to deny them a chance to think or to call the real police.
bank employees have been trained to identify potential victims and when a stressed person comes to make a large withdrawal, try to sit them down and check if they are a victim of a shock call. Some cases of this fraud have been averted this way, but this does not work if an elderly person not trusting banks person pays out cash from their home stash.
Callers use VoIP services, often from criminal call centers in Kosovo or Turkey where there are a lot of people speaking good German, spoofing caller ID. The persons taking delivery of money/valuables from the mark on the other hand are expendable in the case of arrest as there are good cutouts between them and the gang.
My inlaws got such a call some years back, supposedly from my nephew. I believe the claim was that he’d gotten in a car accident. Unfortunately for the scammers, my nephew is legally blind, so no way he’d be driving. So the scammers had a big fail there.
I used to work for a large chain of stores that provided money transfer services as well as sold gift cards. By 2021 we had daily incidents where someone (usually, but not always older) would come in and try to wire money or buy hundreds of dollars in gift cards while on the phone looking absolutely terrified.
Our staff was trained to dissuade them from being scammed, but it was often futile. Either they refused to speak with the staff (on instructions from the caller) or they didn’t understand English or they were absolutely convinced that their grandchild/child/cousin was in mortal and immediate danger and only reading off the numbers on that $1500 in gift cards could save them.
As chappachula noted, it’s called the ‘grandchild scam’ in the US. Usually targets seniors, where the scammer poses as a grandchild on the phone begging for bail money.
The first time I got such a call, I thought I recognized the voice and blurted out the name. Mistake. He explained that he had been visiting Ottawa and made the mistake of DWI. Then he said that the judge was willing to release him without a DWI conviction if he provided a certain amount of money (I forget how much but it was non-trivial) immediately. I was to phone his lawyer in Ottawa with the number on a gift card. I was really hooked. But before getting the gift card, I googled the name of the lawyer and there was no lawyer in Ottawa with that name. Then I called my son (said grandson’s father) and asked if there was any possibility that his son was in Ottawa. No, so I did nothing. Eventually the scammer called back to find out why I hadn’t done anything. I explained that there was no lawyer in Ottawa with that name and they hung up. If only they had been clever enough to use the name of an actual lawyer in Ottawa, I might have fallen for it.
The next time it happened, I simply asked, “Which grandson?” They answered with my name. It was as good a guess as any, but wrong. I hung up.
The interesting thing about this IMO is that the caller successfully, by applying stressors, put you into a mental place where you did not think the obvious: Wait, the Canadian justice system¹ does not work this way.
the justice system of any developed nation where the rule of law obtains, for that matter. Gift cards, forsooth!
They were common in Indonesia - you’d get a call saying your child was in the hospital and needed expensive emergency surgery, so you should meet a hospital representative at an ATM to withdraw cash to give them so surgery could proceed.
One day I came home to find my household staff in a state of agitation. They had received a call while I was out, purportedly about my son, and of course they fell for it. They were desperately awaiting my return home so I could deal with it. They were shocked when I just laughed.
To be safe, I called his school to confirm that he was just fine. Then I had a bit of fun calling the scammer (who must have thought he’d hit the jackpot with an expat parent, since the vast majority of foreigners living in Indonesia are far wealthier than the average Indonesian).
I’m sure the scammer was not used to being quizzed by an Indonesian-speaking foreigner, but he gamely tried to answer my questions and convince me of the reality and urgency of the situation. I played dumb - “why meet at the ATM and not the hospital? I don’t understand” and acted like I would of course pay up, but needed to understand the details better first.
When I tired of it, I finally said, “look, I know you are a scammer,” which brought forth a stream of denials.
As one who has defended any number of DUI charges in Canadian courts, I can assure you that no judge in this country would propose such a thing. To do so would be unethical at best, and outright illegal at worst.
And as a lawyer, I would not accept funds from, or on behalf of, a client; paid by a gift card. I don’t know any lawyer who would. “Payment by gift card” just screams scam.
I did get a call once, telling me that my grandson had been in a car accident in the US, and a large sum of money was needed in order to provide medical attention. I just laughed and hung up.
Why? I have no children; therefore, I have no grandchildren.
Along the southern border, there is a variant: your grandchild has been arrested in Mexico, and has to pay a fine to avoid jail. Implication, a corrupt cop is demanding a bribe, which explains why they want gift cards.
My mom got a call like this once. Being very savvy, she knew just what was going on. The call purported to be her “grandson” with a muffled voice who needed bail money
She said “Well it’s your own damn fault you got into trouble. Maybe a few days in jail will make you change your sinner ways.” And hung up. She loved telling this story.
Yeah, my buddies son just got taken by one of those calls. The "US Marshals’ called to tell him his bank account was in danger, so he had to convert the funds to bitcoins. He lost $10K.
Never would have thought that it was so easy and quick to buy and transfer cryptocurrency. No, don’t tell me how it is done, I don’t care. Anything crypto smell like scam to me.
Maybe eight years ago I made a purchase that required crypto (way less interesting than it sounds). I was able to buy bitcoins and immediately transfer them to make the sale. It took maybe fifteen minutes. I don’t even remember exactly how I did it.