Missouri authorities warn public about 'grandma scam'

ST. LOUIS – Susan is 66, lives in Clayton, has a doctorate in American studies and has taught at St. Louis Community College. She's no dummy. Yet she fell for one of the hoariest of scams this month.

On the day after Labor Day at 7:15 a.m., the phone rang.

"Aunt Susan, I'm in real trouble," the caller said.

"I thought it was my nephew," Susan said.

The caller had a New England accent, just like the real young man.

"He had been in a terrible accident and his insurance had lapsed," Susan said. "He said he was sitting in a police station."

The people he'd hit were from out of the country. To get out of trouble, he had to send them money fast.

She got off the phone and tried to call her nephew at home. His voice mail was full. She tried to call her brother and sister-in-law, with no luck.

Her "nephew" kept calling, again and again. She sent money. He called back, saying he needed more, so she sent it.

"I sent the money to Mexico, one bunch with MoneyGram and two with Western Union," she said. The toll: $3,000.

When she finally reached her real nephew, she knew she'd been fooled. So when the cheat called again, she told him she knew.

"Your money is gone," he said and hung up.

She fell for what's often called a "grandma scam," since the victims are often grandmothers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Scammers troll social media sites to gather names, relationships and other information shared with the world. They may know a lot about a person when they call.

Susan's is an old story to Detective Jack Abell of the Clayton police.

"These scams go on daily, and it's not just the elderly," said Abell.

A version of the scam goes on by email. Cheats hack a person's email account and send messages to all their contacts. They claim to have been robbed and left penniless overseas, then ask the victim to wire money.

Abell's advice: Don't believe it without verifying it by phone with someone you know.

A tipoff: If the person wants you to send money via Western Union, MoneyGram or Green Dot, it's very probably a scam.

"We are awash in a sea of fraud in the U.S.," said Steven Baker, who heads the Federal Trade Commission's Midwest region.

Baker spoke last week to group at the Gatesworth senior living center in University City last week. In University City alone over the past year, the FTC heard 23 complaints from residents who lost $1,000 to $10,000 to scams, two complaints over the loss of $10,000 to $20,000 and one complaint from a person who lost more than $20,000.