Scams seem to be a constantly evolving matter, with scammers constantly finding new ways to take advantage of us in any way that they possibly can. One of these common scams is known to be the ‘Grandparent Scam’. As you probably could have assumed, this unfortunate scam is one that targets elderly people, also known as our innocent and loving Grandparents. 

The idea behind this scam is that the caller pretends to be the grandchild of eldery person receiving the call. In many cases, these scammers manage to fool our grandparents by calling them in the middle of the night, causing them to answer the phone while half asleep, and in turn, most likely to not think as clearly as they usually would.  And although there are many different ways in which this spam is conducted, one of the most common is that the caller who claims to be their grandchild, calls to say that they’ve got themselves into a sticky situation, usually from abroad. They claim that they are in need of money to help them get out of this trouble.

These scammers even go as far as saying that their parents can’t be involved since they wouldn’t want to worry them, and that the money needs to be wired directly without telling anyone about it.  Sometimes the scammers even bring a ‘police officer’ or ‘lawyer’ into the story to make it more believable, having them call the ‘grandparent’ to check the details.  Unfortunately, there is a lot more to this scam than money, with these poor grandparents feeling embarrassed to tell their family about what happened, and are ashamed that they were so easily tricked. 

If you do get a call like this, or even hear of one,  first of all, be sure not to fall into the trap, but also be sure to have the number blocked, and report the number as spam so that we can continue to protect others out there. No one deserves to be scammed, and especially not our grandparents.