Elderly people are the targets of a scam that uses their loved ones as bait
BALTIMORE -- A Maryland woman says her mother fell victim to "the grandparent scam."
Most people have heard about these types of scams. Someone calls and pretends to be an authority figure, pressuring a targeted individual to pay them.
Well, there's a scam that is targeting the elderly population. The goal is to fool them into believing their family members are in danger and desperately need money.
The scam starts with a frantic phone call.
In this case, Karen Morgan's mother was scammed out of hundreds of dollars because she was led to believe that her grandson was grappling with legal troubles and needed financial assistance.
"She just went into 'I need to save my grandson' mode," Morgan said.
Eventually, she discovered that it was all a lie, she said.
"From what I know, she happened to call my brother who was like, 'What? He's in school," Morgan said. "And then he contacted my nephew to find, yes, he is in school."
The Federal Trade Commission reports that consumers lost nearly 8.8 billion dollars to fraud last year.
Imposter scams are the most commonly reported scams.
Back in April, a man who has asked that his identity be concealed lost $38,000 to a scammer who pretended to be his granddaughter.
The granddaughter's imposter said they were in a car accident and needed money.
He said the voice on the other side of the phone was identical to his granddaughter's voice.
"It's an embarrassment and a total feeling of stupidity," he said.
Next week, state officials will be teaming up with AARP Maryland to kick off "Protect Wee." It's a statewide awareness campaign that provides elders with information and tools to help identify and avoid scams.
Morgan says she hopes the campaign can protect someone else from falling victim to scammers.
"It's not just about elders," she said. "It's about all of us. We all need to gather together to stop these criminals because it's an attack on one of us; it's an attack on all of us. Literally."
