Protecting Senior Citizens Against Telephone Scams
It is a familiar story. An elderly woman from Watchung answered her phone last month only to be told that her grandson was in custody in Haiti and needed her assistance to bail him out. It was only after she had wired $1,990 that the woman realized she had been scammed. Her attempts to stop the wire transfer of money were unsuccessful. (1)
This is just one variation of the many financial scams targeting senior citizens. Sometimes the con artists will claim that the relative of the victim is in the hospital and in need of money. Other times, the caller will even pretend to be the victim’s relative, tricking the victim into revealing the name of the person he or she thinks is on the other end of the line, and then claim some type of financial crisis he/she needs help resolving. (2)