Scam Alert: Your Loved One Has NOT Been Kidnapped

December 17, 2013

I’ve previously written warnings about the grandparent’s scam, where a caller pretends to be a grandkid asking for help in a bad situation, typically a fake car accident or drug arrest, and the grandparent is instructed to wire money to help out.  However, scammers are now turning up the heat with the newest twist – the kidnap call. Imagine you are at work, your cellphone rings, and the caller informs you that your father (or brother/husband/son) was in a car accident, declined to give his insurance information, a fight broke out, and your loved one was now being held at gunpoint and you need to wire $1,000 immediately for the damages or else he would be shot.  How would you react? 

This happened to a local woman in Chester County, PA just a few weeks ago based on an article in the The Inquirer. “We have your dad hostage,” a man screamed into her cellphone. “Leave work right now.”  Her only thoughts at that point were to comply.  “It was so real”, she said, so she swiped her credit card and wired the funds as a MoneyGram.  The caller said her father would be taken to the closest medical facility to be released once she wired the money, since he had supposedly been injured in the accident and fight.  Of course, later she learned her father was safe at work and she had been scammed.

In the heat of the moment, any one of us might give in to this scare tactic.  However, any time you are asked to wire money out of the country, this should be a red flag.  If you ask personal questions, such as the color hair of your loved one or the type of jewelry they are wearing, the scam will quickly fall apart.  Don’t let yourself be a financial hostage!