Grandmother Warns Others About Scam Phone Calls

DENVER (CBS4) - It's an all-too-familiar scam -- someone calls a senior citizen claiming to be a grandchild in trouble and asks to have money wired -- but it's once again making the rounds.

Joanna, who doesn't want to use her last name, recently fell for it but she was lucky that Western Union kept her from losing money.

"This guy was so slick, I truly believed it was my grandson," she said. "He said, 'Grandma, I'm in trouble and I need your help. I'm in Bolivia and I'm in jail.' "

The bogus grandson told the 78-year-old victim he had been arrested after a car accident in Bolivia.

"He told me he had a broken nose and stitches on his upper lip. So it didn't sound quite like him but close enough that I believed him," Joanna said.

The man told Joanna police had taken his cell phone and wallet and he needed $4,600 wired to him to get out of jail.

Joanna wired the money but because of this very scam, Bolivia no longer allows those large wire transfers.

That's when the scammer called Joanna back and asked to have the money wired to Madrid. That's when Western Union convinced Joanna to call her grandson, who answered his phone in Boulder.

The 18th Juridical District in Colorado is also all too aware of the scam. John Skoglund with the District Attorney's office says at least six Coloradans have fallen prey to the scam to the sum of $5,000 or more in just the past two weeks.

"In the case of Joanna, her son travels overseas so it' snot out of the norm he could be in a foreign country," Sgoglund said.

But Joanna says she has learned her lesson and she'll be very suspicious of any calls.