Officials warn of scam targeting grandparents for money

BOSTON – State officials are reminding residents that money scams can affect anybody, after grandparents of an intern at the Massachusetts Securities Division reported sending a person the $14,000 the intern needed in order to be released by Mexican authorities.”[The intern] assured them he was in Boston and had never been in Mexico in his life,” Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin said in a press release Tuesday. “His grandparents relayed the story of how they had sent cash to an address in New York to assure his release.”Galvin said the incident was a twist on a familiar scam.Galvin said scammers will use social media and the Internet to find out information about people and their families. The scammers will then call a family member and the scammers will pretend to be, or to represent, another family member who is in trouble and needs a certain amount of money to make that trouble “go away,” Galvin said.In the intern’s case, his grandparents in Connecticut left a message on his phone saying “this is grandma, please, please let us know you are alright,” Galvin reported.When the intern called them back, he learned his grandparents had gotten a call saying the intern had been hurt crashing into a police car in Mexico while in the country for a bachelor party. They had sent $14,000 to Brooklyn as instructed, and the securities division called the FBI to try and recover the cash.”The FBI assured the Division they would do all they could but the chances of recovery were ?microscopic,'” Galvin wrote.The prediction turned out to be wrong.The package with the money was delivered to the Brooklyn address and signed for by the building superintendent, according to Galvin. But the superintendent put the package in his office while he ran some errands, officials said. The package was still there when police arrived.”A happy ending to this tale should not let anyone think that FBI agent was wrong on the chances of recovery,” Galvin said. “Despite the lurid scenarios presented by scammers, a call to the grandchild or other family members will save much embarrassment and financial loss.”Galvin specifically warned residents about calls for money that stress the importance of not telling others in the family. He said seniors are particularly vulnerable to scams because they may not realize the amount of information available on social media.Lynn Police Lt. Chris Kelly said Thursday that he has not heard of any recent scams such as this specifically impacting Lynn seniors. However, he said that the basic outline of the scam – requests of money targeting family members of a loved one in trouble – was familiar. He said Lynn had experienced a rash of such calls about a year-and-a-half ago.Other residents have reported scams in the previous year involving companies claiming a computer was hacked, or scams involving fake real-estate listings on Craigslist.Galvin directed residents to www.sec.state.ma.us/sct to view information about this particular scam and how seniors, in particular, can protect themselves from becoming scam victims.Cyrus Moulton can be reached at [email protected].