Idaho Falls PD Warns Against Scams

(IDAHO FALLS, ID)  —  The Idaho Falls Police Department is reminding residents to use caution when anyone solicits money or confidential information through the mail, on the telephone or over the Internet.

The department frequently receives complaints from residents regarding various money scams. These schemers often play on emotion, greed, ignorance and kindness from the general public to fraud residents out of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars.

Recently, the IFPD received a few complaints regarding the “grandparent scam”.

Common scenarios include:

 

■A grandparent receives a phone call (or sometimes an e-mail) from a “grandchild.” If it is phone call, it’s often late at night or early in the morning when most people aren’t thinking that clearly. Usually, the person claims to be traveling in a foreign country and has gotten into a bad situation, like being arrested for drugs, getting in a car accident or being mugged…and needs money wired ASAP. And the caller doesn’t want his or her parents told.

■Sometimes, instead of the “grandchild” making the phone call, the criminal pretends to be an arresting police officer, a lawyer, a doctor at a hospital, or some other person. And we’ve also received complaints about the phony grandchild talking first and then handing the phone over to an accomplice…to further spin the fake tale.

■We’ve also seen military families victimized: after perusing a soldier’s social networking site, a con artist will contact the soldier’s grandparents, sometimes claiming that a problem came up during military leave that requires money to address.

■While it’s commonly called the grandparent scam; criminals may also claim to be a family friend, a niece or nephew, or another family member.

 

The grandparent scam has been around for a few years—the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has been receiving reports about it since 2008. But the scam and scam artists have become more sophisticated. Thanks to the Internet and social networking sites, a criminal can sometimes uncover personal information about their targets, which makes the impersonations more believable. For example, the actual grandson may mention on his social networking site that he’s a photographer who often travels to Mexico. When contacting the grandparents, the phony grandson will say he’s calling from Mexico, where someone stole his camera equipment and passport.

 

Often funds lost by victims can never be recovered. Therefore, it’s important to avoid being victimized.

 

And, our advice to avoid being victimized in the first place:

 

■Resist the pressure to act quickly.

■Try to contact your grandchild or another family member to determine whether or not the call is legitimate.

■Never wire money based on a request made over the phone or in an e-mail….especially overseas. Wiring money is like giving cash—once you send it, you can’t get it back.

 

The IFPD recommends that residents further educate themselves about the latest fraud schemes and key indicators of frauds by visiting www.fbi.gov or www.ftc.gov.