This scam just happned to my Grandma. Someone called claiming to me be and said they were in vancouver CA with friends and were in a car acident and did not have ins and needed $2900 wired to them. The realy scary thing was they knew my wife and kids names. It worries me how they found her since she has a different last name and lives in a different state.

It happened to my 82 year-old mother last week. One of her grandchildren has been in some trouble before, and she automatically assumed it was him. She called me crying and upset; he told her he was in jail in Canada and wanted her to send $2900 to get him out. Luckily, she called me first to see what she should do. She gets these "scam" calls all the time. The day before she had received one saying they were from Publisher's Clearing House and wanted her to send $325 in fees and they would send her a $250,000 prize check. She received another call the same week wanting to sell her electronic medical record keeping data for $395. I have told her to never, never give anyone information or agree to any type transaction over the phone; just tell them her daughter handles her affairs and get their telephone number. So far, so good. I don't know how to make them stop. I've told her not to even answer her phone, to let the answering machine pick up her calls, but she never does. These scam artists must have some type network where they obtain senior contact information.

My niece lost her cell phone and was very concerned because she had each of us named as Aunt Barbara, Granny, etc... all it would take is the person to get her phone and they'd know all our phone numbers. If they called from that cell, we'd all see it's her on caller ID. Over a cell phone, it's very hard to listen to voices and know for sure who you are talking to, half the time there's static or cutting out. Thank you for the warning !!!

One, if my grandmother heard some say "Grandma" she would know it was bogus, second, if she heard one of her grandchildren asking for money because they were in jail she would know it was bogus, and third she knows her grandchildren's voices because they are close! I feel really bad for the old folks who don't know their own family well enough to recognize them and have such slackers as relatives that they would believe they were in trouble with the law.

A few years ago, I read in the newspaper about people calling seniors and pretending to be their grandchildren. A week later, this guy called me & said, "Grandma" etc. I said to this guy "This sounds like a Scam" & he said, "What's a Scam". I wished I played along & pretended to wire money to him & have the cops stake him out.