# Have you ever gotten the "Grandma/Grandpa, I'm in jail" scam call? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 21, 2025, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-gotten-the-grandma-grandpa-im-in-jail-scam-call/1015914 "2025-03-21T15:28:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2025, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-gotten-the-grandma-grandpa-im-in-jail-scam-call/1015914/41 "2025-03-24T14:41:18Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > > [@Horatius](#): > > > > Luckily, she’s in a place where she can’t be scammed very easily by these methods. > > I wonder to what extent numbers in area codes with a high percentage of retirees are the ones targeted. My inlaws lived in Ocala, FL (a very popular area for retirees) and like I mentioned, my MIL had gotten several of these calls over the years. Whereas I live in southern Maryland and I’ve never gotten such a call. I’m inclined to believe that Arizona area codes are also getting lots of such scammy calls. In my area they somehow get lists of names with numbers and go after people with Indian names hoping to get senior citizens. They get enough victims who are scared and don’t realize the police won’t call speaking Gujarati. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2025, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-gotten-the-grandma-grandpa-im-in-jail-scam-call/1015914/42 "2025-03-24T14:47:13Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Yeah, in Japanese it’s the 俺俺 scam and it was really big in the news. > > ATMs have warnings about it and you have to click past them to transfer money. Yesterday I was doing an Interac money transfer via my bank’s website, and before it would send the money, it popped up a screen asking if I was being pressured or coerced into sending money. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-gotten-the-grandma-grandpa-im-in-jail-scam-call/1015914/43 "2025-03-25T07:10:28Z")
I got a variation, somebody called pretending to be an ex-girlfriend of mine. They said a generic enough first name (Jessica) it matched up with someone I dated but that was literally almost 20 years ago so it would seem like I’d be like the second to last person they’d ever all again for help. They said their car broke down and they needed a money transfer via CashApp for repair parts. I told her why me and she said “I always loved you the best” and then I immediately went “So you want to get back together? I’m single right now” and this caused whoever was on the other end to just stop talking to me for some reason. And for those who might joke it was actually her, the CashApp profile pic was of somebody who 100% wasn’t her. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-gotten-the-grandma-grandpa-im-in-jail-scam-call/1015914/44 "2025-03-25T18:36:00Z")
My wife got hit with one of these a few years ago - our “daughter” called in a panic because she had been driving drunk (she doesn’t have a car) and had hit someone and had injured a child and was in jail and needed bail money!!! I was out and she called in a panic, but I had heard of this scam and told her to call our daughter and confirm with her before doing anything.. I got one a few weeks later from my “nephew” who needed to be bailed out of jail, and I told “him” that I had already made clear that I wasn’t going to support his meth habit any longer. “Nephew” hung up for some reason. (Real nephew does not actually have a drug habit.) ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2025, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-gotten-the-grandma-grandpa-im-in-jail-scam-call/1015914/45 "2025-03-26T00:44:51Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Yesterday I was doing an Interac money transfer via my bank’s website, and before it would send the money, it popped up a screen asking if I was being pressured or coerced into sending money. I’m at a park now and there is a sign up warning about scams. I knew someone who fell for a romance scammer. Sadly, more than once. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-gotten-the-grandma-grandpa-im-in-jail-scam-call/1015914/46 "2025-03-30T21:48:54Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > The folks actually calling you may well be indentured or actual slaves. It’s the organised crime behind them that are the real scum. > [@Loach](#): > > In my area they somehow get lists of names with numbers and go after people with Indian names hoping to get senior citizens. They get enough victims who are scared and don’t realize the police won’t call speaking Gujarati. > [@TokyoBayer](#): > > My wife got a scam call from a Mandarin speaker before but the caller had a mainland accent instead of Taiwanese. No doubt the scam-slavery-centers are fully operational in several parts of the world. From these and other stories it doesn’t appear that the scam-bosses try to match up accent-with-victim, or at least not very effectively. And English-speaking scammers may well be slaves, too, but probably a lot of them are still, well, paid poorly but not enslaved. (Though I do sometimes wonder about those for-profit prisons: the inmates ARE essentially enslaved. **Do a lot of US scam calls originate from US for-profit-prisons???** I don’t mean the prisoners being in business for themselves, but rather being forced to make the calls by some entrepreneur who’s paying the private-prison operator for their labor.) Of course the ultimate answer will be: > [@natureboy](#): > > AI is getting scary get at some of this stuff. With good-enough AI, no more slaves required. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-gotten-the-grandma-grandpa-im-in-jail-scam-call/1015914.md?page=2)