The phone rings. You recognize the voice as your nephew's.
He's calling from Canada, where he says he's been on a fishing trip with some buddies. They've unwittingly caught fish on tribal land and have been arrested by authorities there. He needs $2,900 to pay fines and "clear his record" before he'll be allowed to leave the country and fly home to Texas, where he lives.
He tells you all this, and then wants to know if you can help by wiring him the money. He's got trip insurance that will reimburse the entire amount as soon as he gets back to the States.
It sounds crazy, but what do you know of Canadian and tribal law? And you know this nephew has no one else to turn to for such an amount. You and your husband are retired, but have that much in the bank between savings and Social Security income. You agree to wire him the money -- and do.
When you return from sending the cash, the phone rings. It's a man who says he's Mr. Green with Western Union security, just calling to verify a few things about the transaction. Then your nephew calls to get the control number on the wire. He'll need that and photo I.D. to claim the money at Western Union in Kingston, Ont., which he does. End of story.
Until your nephew phones again the next day. Turns out there are court costs and lawyer fees that he didn't know about. He needs another $2,900. It seems exorbitant, and will not be easy for you to scrape up, but you want to help him out of the jam and he swears he'll be able to pay it back as soon as he returns to Texas.
This time you go to the Glen's on Eighth Street in Traverse City to send the money and a cashier there gently inquires about the legitimacy of the transaction. Until then, you hadn't questioned your nephew's story, still feel you must wire the money -- and do. But the seed of doubt has been planted.
As soon as you get back home, the phone rings, and it's your nephew again. You decide to ask him a personal question only your real nephew could know the answer to. At that, the phone line goes dead.
Within minutes, Mr. Green from Western Union security calls again and you tell him you're suspicious now. Mr. Green says what they can do is when the man comes to collect the money this time, they can ask him "test questions." You give him specific questions to ask -- and the answers.
Meanwhile, you've tried to reach your nephew at his home number in Texas, just in case. Well, he calls back on your cell just as your land line is ringing with yet another call from the "nephew" in Canada. The jig is up. Fortunately, you have not given imposter nephew the control number for the second transaction. You call Western Union and put a hold on the second money transfer. That's when you learn that there is no Mr. Green -- that he's part of the fraud, too.
This happened to a Traverse City area couple who are mortified that they could have fallen for such a hoax. She was a psych nurse for two decades, and is especially chagrined that she could be taken in.
Plus how did the perpetrators connect them with their nephew, when they have different surnames? And the personal details? And the caller sounded just like him.
Police are investigating. It's not the first local scam of this ilk; the Grand Traverse County Commission on Aging helped thwart one in August.
Turns out this time calls came from Montreal, where the money was picked up at a Western Union office.
The nurse and her husband hope to get their first $2,900 back because it was obtained under fraudulent circumstances.
Meanwhile, she has learned that another couple here in Traverse City recently received a similar call from their "grandson," in trouble in Canada.
Except they had just talked to their grandson. He was at college, taking exams, here in the U.S. They hung up the phone and reported it to authorities.
She's told her story to the Record-Eagle because she wants other people to be aware. She doesn't want this to happen to anyone else.
"When I look back, there were little pink flags," she said. "But we had no idea.
"You want to trust people and think people are good. I could kick myself for not seeing through it."
Sniffing out a scam
Rocky Welch guesses he's personally been involved in at least three wire money transfers this year alone that turned out to be fraudulent.
In fact, the manager at Glen's on Eighth Street in Traverse City and his staff have developed radar for questionable Western Union transactions at their customer service counter. It's not uncommon for them to try to engage customers in conversation in those situations, especially when a transfer involves a large sum of money going to someone who isn't a relative.
"I've seen it enough times to ask questions," he said.
Welch shares one story of an elderly customer who came in to wire $2,500 out of the country. The man had received multiple phone calls telling him he'd won the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes, but needed to send the cash to claim the jackpot.
"I told him that I knew it was fraud and he said he had called Washington, D.C., and verified it was real," Welch said. The customer insisted on sending the money, and Welch obliged. However, he immediately phoned Western Union, who verified it was a case of fraud and intercepted the cash before it was too late.
"People that do the Western Union scams, this is what they do for a living," Welch said. "They just find new ways to fool people."
Kathy Gibbons can at gibbonskath@yahoo.com. For more of Kathy's columns, log on to record-eagle.com/kathygibbons.
Related Items:
- Commission on aging aide helps detect scam
- Editorial: Team effort fights scammers
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