Scammers have a variety of tactics to contact their next victim. There’s a good chance that someone is up to something if your phone rings and you don’t know who the person is on the other line. Scammers make unsolicited calls to strangers in order to dupe them out of their money. Sadly, frauds are precisely designed for the elderly. And that is exactly what happened in this narrative.
A confidence game, also known as a “confidence trick,” is a crime in which people or organizations are defrauded by gaining their trust. And the authorities are telling us that these con artists might gain access to our money.
The “grandparent scam” is one of the most prevalent instances of this scam. They choose grandparents as their targets. The American Association of Retired People (AARP) has more information on grandparent scams. “The victim gets a call from someone posing as his or her grandchild. This person explains, in a frantic-sounding voice, that he or she is in trouble: There’s been an accident, or an arrest, or a robbery.”
This is what happened to this elderly gentleman. Fortunately, a UPS store employee noticed and intervened before it was too late.
In a recent news item, a UPS store employee came to the rescue of a defrauded customer. A Mount Juliet, Tennessee, resident was on the verge of losing thousands of dollars after being taken in by the con. Someone phoned him up for assistance. An elderly man was about to send $4,000 to save his family member’s life.
The elderly gentleman walked into the UPS Store on Mt. Juliet Road, where he was greeted by the staff. When asked what he was shipping and to where, the old guy responded, “I have no idea.” The elderly customer identified Myro Kuzmyn, the shop owner, as he was paying for his items and began talking to him. This prevented the old man from being a victim of a scam.
In a conversation with News4 WSMV Nashville, Myro explained that these people are given very detailed instructions, such as “what to say, how to ship the money, and when it should arrive.”
Myro reminded, “When I asked the customer if he knew this individual, he kind of gave it a little pause, and also said ‘not quite.’ I had this uneasy feeling about the transaction. It just didn’t make sense to me.”
Myro was suspicious, so he immediately called the cops. And it turns out that he was correct. A con artist posing as an attorney contacted Myro and said that a family of elderly people was incarcerated and needed assistance.
“Of course, a man in his 60s wanted to assist a family member and immediately wanted to send cash,” said Mount Juliet Police Captain Tyler Chandler. Myro fortunately stepped in and prevented the elderly gent from becoming a victim.”
The owner of the UPS store explained that there were several warning flags involved in the incident. The first is that the package did not appear to be a “document” as claimed by the man. Also, no one on his team knew who it was going to. Finally, it was necessary for it to arrive the next morning at precisely eight o’clock.
During these periods, it’s critical to be cautious. AARP offered some advice on avoiding a grandparent fraud.“Don’t engage with the caller or reply to a text. Contact your grandchild or another family member to check the story out. Resist the urge to act immediately no matter how dramatic the story.”
They advised me that scammers will almost certainly request my gift card information, wire money, or send cash. Their chosen payment options were intended to ensure that they would not be discovered.
