Seniors For Living

The holidays are over, but that doesn’t stop people seeking ways to make a dishonest dollar, especially as those credit card bills start rolling in.

Nowhere Like Home, a Canadian-based home & healthcare service site, recently posted a blog on the latest senior scam to hit the airwaves there: fake grandkids calling for cash. As the post describes, a woman received a call from someone claiming to be her granddaughter. The young woman explained that she had just been in a car accident in Montreal. Her credit card was not working and she didn’t want to call her husband or parents to tell them about the accident. Promising to pay it back ASAP, the young woman asked for $4,000 to be sent by Western Union so she could fix the car and return home. Although the clerk in Wal-mart was suspicious about the wire transfer, the “grandmother” felt obligated to help.

There were more than a few red flags flying in this scenario: the granddaughter did not give her name, nor did she explain why she was in Montreal, and being in Montreal should not have hindered the use of her credit card. The Walmart clerk was grounded in her suspicion; according to the post, “hundreds of seniors have fallen for this scam operated out of money-transfer stores, and among them they have lost more than $3.5 million.”

Sally Herigstad, a writer for CreditCards.com, gives a few quick pointers to prevent telephone scam artists from pulling the wool over your eyes:

1. Don’t give your personal information over the phone.
2. If someone claims to be a relative, verify it with a few pointed questions.
3. Be wary of calls that prey on your emotions (be it sympathy or greed, i.e. “I’ve been in a car accident” or “You’ve been selected to receive $2,500 in our monthly drawing”).

While seniors may be targeted in these type of scams more frequently, people of all ages should be savvy about and skeptical of business transactions that don’t add up. Check out http://www.stopseniorscams.org/ for more information on senior-specific scams and http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/escams.htm for details on internet-based scams.

-Michelle Seitzer