RSS Feed
Print Story
E-mail Story
Scammer targeting heart strings, seeking fast money transfer
| Friday, Oct 10 2008 4:49 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Oct 13 2008 7:52 AM
Deneice Murray was ecstatic when a grandson she hadn’t talked to in seven years called her Tehachapi home on Thursday.
BAKERSFIELD.COM HOT TOPICS:
Loading Stories
Advertisement
The grandson was busted for a DUI in Toronto. He needed $4,500 wired to him for bail right away.
“My heart was hurting for a kid in another country,” Murray said. “I was thinking more emotionally than logically.”
The caller was part of a new wrinkle in a scam.
“There are literally thousands of scams with different varieties of the same scam,” said Sgt. Greg Terry with the Bakersfield Police Department.
All scammers try to create a sense of urgency in the victim, Terry said.
They will dig for private information like credit card numbers and ask you to wire money, according to Terry.
“If you can’t verify information like where the caller is in custody, that should be a warning sign,” Terry said.
Murray got the money and called MoneyGram to set up the transfer.
When Murray told a MoneyGram operator about her grandson’s situation, the company alerted her it was a scam.
She stopped the transfer and began thinking about her conversation with the caller.
The caller called back about an hour later. Murray asked him a question only her grandson would know.
“When did you come back from your mission?”
The caller hung up.
Murray said she “lost a little bit of hope” of connecting with her grandson again.
“To give you that kind of hope is the cruelest thing to do,” she said.