'Bail for grandchild' scam narrowly averted

The happenstance appearance of a St. Charles police officer saved a local woman from losing $2,450 to a con artist this week.

St. Charles police are using the tale to remind people to be wary when anybody asks for your money.

According to police, a woman received a call on her home telephone from a man purporting to be an “Officer Joe Miller” from the “Canadian police.” He told her that her grandson had been arrested in Canada on a marijuana possession charge, and needed her to send money for bail by a wire transfer.

The woman then went to a bank at a shopping center in the 800 block of South Randall Road and sent the money.

A St. Charles police officer happened to be driving through the center's parking lot, on a routine patrol, when the woman left the bank. She flagged him down to ask if he could call the Canadian officer back, since she did not have her cell phone with her.

The officer noticed that the number was registered not to a location in Canada, but to an island in the Caribbean. Suspecting fraud, he returned to the bank with the woman and got it to cancel the transfer.

The scam and a similar one, in which the “grandchild” makes the call, are common, according to the AARP senior citizens' advocacy organization. Even a St. Charles police officer had recently received such a call, said Paul McCurtain, the department's public information officer.

The AARP offers this advice for avoiding being taken:

&bul; Don't fill in the blanks. When the caller says your grandchild is in trouble, say “Which one?” but don't use their name.

&bul; Verify the caller. If the person says they are your grandchild, tell them you will call them back, but at a number you already have for them, not one the caller gives.

&bul; Don't give your bank account or credit card account numbers to anyone.

&bul; Be suspicious of requests for money wire transfers.

McCurtain said people have reported several other scam attempts to the department in recent months.

One person reported receiving an e-mail from a person who advised her that he had been hired by a close friend of hers to kill her. It went on to say that he had done some “investigating” and determined that the reason that he was hired was false, but that it would cost her $5,000 for him not to carry out the contract.

In another case, McCurtain said, a resident responded via e-mail to a newspaper ad for a personal assistant job. He was hired, but was told the boss was out of the country on business. After a couple of weeks, the new “boss” sent the victim a check in the mail with instructions to cash the check, withdraw $600 for his own payment and then wire the remainder of the funds to an address in Pennsylvania. The check was fraudulent.

Another scam sent a letter to a person, along with a check, saying the person had just won the Canadian lottery. The letter, from a financial services group in Edmonton, told the recipient to deposit the check and wire back several thousand dollars for taxes on the winnings. In this case, the person did not deposit the fraudulent check, but instead called police.