“Our son was living in Buenos Aires, teaching English, when my active, smart 80-plus-year-old mother received a call from someone claiming to be him. In her excitement, she fed all of the pertinent information to the scammer as they spoke on the phone. ‘Hi Grandma!’… ‘Oh, is this Daniel?’…’Yes, it’s me….Dan.’ ‘Oh my, are you calling all the way from Argentina?’ The scammer told her that he was at a wedding of a college friend and was in a car accident after drinking at the reception and thrown in jail with a broken nose. He needed $5,000 to pay bail and didn’t want his parents to know. My mom wanted to help her beloved grandson, so she went to her bank to withdraw $5,000! Fortunately, the teller knew my mom well and pleaded with her to call me, and told her that this was a very common scam. She called me, and I assured her that our son had not been to a wedding and was not in a car accident or thrown in an Argentine jail! Yikes!” — Ann, 60ish
Real Life of an MSW 
Yikes! What a horrible thing to do to a grandparent! What’s worse is, now some are using AI to fake a phone call FROM a child, using his/her own voice to plead, “Mom! Dad! Help me!” and go on to demand ransom money. It seems there’s no limit to the level of greed and cruelty that Man is capable of.
(Those who believe “People are basically good” are clueless, imo.)
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I agree the world is a scary place. I think it wise for individuals to have a safe word/and or phrase with their loved ones. It is also wise to allow all calls to go to voicemail, and then screen them appropriately for there.
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Yes, we have a code word, which isn’t actually a real word. Now if only my husband would remember it! 🤦
(I would also urge people to decide that word or phrase out of earshot of cell phones or “Alexa.” 😒)
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These people that do this, I wish they’d get a job at the government and do this legally and get paid. Geez!
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Thank you for reading, commenting, and offering your perspective.
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