Beware. Please read. Heads up.
This might be a bit lengthy but worth reading if it could save you or someone you know from being scammed.
Happened to me this morning, I took a day of vacation today to get my boat ready and go fishing tonight. My boat is kept in a shed at my mothers about 1/4 mile from where I live and I was up there working on it when she came out and said I had a phone call. It was my 30 year old son and he said that he had been in a traffic accident and that everyone was all right but he had been arrested. He was looking at his phone and rear ended a car and there was a pregnant in that car. No drugs or alcohol were involved. The judge had set bail at 8000.00 and that it would be returned when he showed up for court tue morning. He told me that they would transfer me to the public defender working with him for more information. The guy told me that the judge would more than likely drop all the charges tue since there were no drugs or alcohol involved and no one was hurt, but for the judge to keep it off his record that the bail would have to be made through a bondsman in ga.
I was to take the cash and put it in a magazine and then in a bubble envelope and go to the ups and call him and he would give the address and I would get a receipt. When I tried asking questions about my guarantee of getting my money back he got rather pissy, not at all like you would expect from a public servant. I know, in telling it it screams scam. But when it happens and it involves a loved one you go into reaction mode. So I called a state trooper friend and got his input and then went to the court house to see the judge myself. My son wasn’t being held there and no judges were there. Next to the sheriffs office where I got even more conformation that it was a scam. Then I called my sons work and lo and behold he was on the job.
I tried to call the “public defender” back but he didn’t answer. A bit later he called me again and I told him I would have called earlier but wanted to wait and make sure he was finished screwing around.....he kinda came unglued.
The scary things: I’m not stupid or I thought very susceptible to scams, yet I had gone so far as to get the money out of the bank. And both my mother and myself would have sworn it was my son we were talking to. It sounded just like him. From the sheriff I learned that they capture a few words from a person answering a phone and then run those through a computer program and can make it say what ever the wish. I don’t understand it all. In hind sight it was my 83 year old mother they were targeting, I just happened to be off work and be there. Share this with everyone you know the knowledge of what they are capable of might save someone from being robbed.
