A 78-year-old Holly Oak man was scammed into parting with more than $9,000 after being told his grandson had been in a crash and needed the money to avoid being jailed, New Castle County Police said.
The Jan. 25 swindle spurred police to caution of ongoing scams and offer tips to help others from falling for such trickery, which police said has picked up over the last month.
“We’ve had three additional attempts in the last week,” Cpl. Michael McNasby, a police spokesperson, told Delaware Online/The News Journal. “Usually when they occur, we see multiple incidents in a short period of time and then they slow down so we believe it could be some type of traveling scam with suspects preying on a certain area prior to moving to a new location.
“They usually pull officers’ names from our websites and it’s easy to spot because the names and ranks are commonly incorrect or misspelled during the scam.”
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How did this scam happen?
In this incident, McNasby said that someone contacted the man pretending to be his grandson. The person then told him he’d been in a car crash and needed bail money or else he was going to jail.
A person pretending to be his grandson’s lawyer then told the victim he needed to provide more than $9,000 cash to keep his grandson from being jailed.
A man then went to the victim’s home in the 1400 block of Ridge Road to collect the money.
“It is very concerning when the suspects are responding to the victim’s residence because it could lead to additional crimes or opportunities for the suspects,” McNasby said. “It could also lead to face-to-face confrontation between the victim and suspect.”
While the scam is initiated via phone or the internet, McNasby said that in the past few scams county police have handled, it has been common for scammers to respond to a victim’s home or a meeting location in order to collect money.
In these cases, a majority of the information gathered from the suspect is usually from open-source means and social media, McNasby said.
“Many folks share incredibly too much information on social media and don’t take the time to set up privacy settings on the applications,” he said. “Most grandparents are excited to share images and information regarding their grandchildren, family, events, etc.”
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How to avoid these scams
As a friendly reminder, police ask that people follow these tips and share them with friends and family to protect themselves from these scams:
- Don’t let a caller rush you into making decisions.
- Do hang up and call the family member in question or other relatives on a known number to make sure everyone is safe.
- Don’t send cash, wire money, or provide numbers from gift or cash-reload cards to a person claiming to be a family member. Scammers prefer those payment methods because they’re difficult to trace.
- Use privacy settings on your social media accounts so that only people you know can access your posts and photos.
- If someone claims to be a police officer, do call the relevant law enforcement agency to verify the person’s identity and any information they’ve given you.
- The only way to alleviate a warrant is to appear at the issuing agency or at the court. Also, when posting bail, even for a family member, you must be present to post the bail.
- Neither Deputies nor officers from the New Castle County Division of Police will ever request or take funds over the phone, as any payments owed must be made in person to the respective court.
- Trust your instincts.
“Aside from the tips we shared, I think the biggest thing we can stress is that no officer would contact a citizen under such circumstances,” McNasby said. “The best bet would be to end the call and check with the alleged involved family member or call another relative or friend to verify their safety.
“Just do your best to slow them down. The suspect will commonly use tactics to make it seem urgent so it can be advantageous to slow them down and ask a follow-up question or two. “
He encouraged people to still report these incidents to the police, even if a caller wasn’t successful. McNasby said investigators can usually link a suspect to “additional, similar crimes” when an arrest is made.
If you think you have been the victim of a scam or fraud, please do not be embarrassed or ashamed. These scammers can be very convincing and you are not alone. Contact the New Castle County Police non-emergency line (302) 573-2800 or (302) 395-8171 to report a scam.
Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, eparra@delawareonline.com or Twitter @eparra3.
