Disturbing Phone Call Scam Hits Close to Home To the Editor: This past week we received a call that alarmed us and which we want people to know about.
Our phone rang, my wife Kathy answered and the caller was our grandson Elliott (or so it seemed). Kathy let him know she was pleased to hear from him. The conversation proceeded with discussions about his upcoming visit around the Fourth and his regular delight in shooting fireworks. At one point she said that his voice was a little different to which he responded “I have a cold”.
Shortly thereafter the conversation changed. He sounded stressed and said “I’m crying. I’m in jail.” He proceeded to say that he was driving, hit a woman who was pregnant who was now in the hospital and he had been arrested.
Kathy answered “Elliott, you have to call your parents.” He responded in a frantic tone “no, no, no!” He said there was a fine of $75,000 but he needed 10% of that for bail!
By that time Kathy had become distressed and suspicious. She said “Elliott, you have to call your parents!”. The caller hung up.
This was obviously a scam but it was alarming because the caller sounded for all the world like Elliott. The conversation was initially completely consistent with what we would expect from our grandson – until the issue of money came up and the refusal to call the parents.
Experts tell me that with today’s technology scammers only need a 3 second sample of a person’s voice in order to recreate a believable conversation from that person (we have no idea how they could have gotten such a sample).
One simple move to verify a questionable call is to ask the caller to give you a phone number so you can call them right back. A legitimate caller should have no hesitation about doing this but a scammer will either refuse or – more likely – will hang up.
Best wishes, good luck. We live in a dangerous world.
Tom Dean Wessington Springs