Three or four guys converged on him, and uh, they were off to the races.
I’m your host, Michelle Kosinski.
This week this one ends unexpectedly.
We’re going to take a look at a particularly disturbing grandparent scam.
And this one has quite a twist, or maybe I should say, twisted ending.
Now the Federal Trade Commission says this kind of scam is not just growing, it’s exploding.
Just an ugly situation.
[00:01:55] Michelle: Let’s bring in Fraud Expert Frank Abagnale now.
Frank, how are you doing?
[00:01:59] Frank Abagnale: Doing great, Michelle, thank you.
[00:02:07] Frank Abagnale: Yes, scams are always being updated and changed a little bit.
It’s very official sounding, sounds very, very real.
[00:03:10] Michelle: It just hurts to hear about.
you gotta see to it that this is real.
Again, very easy to do with the, the internet.
[00:03:39] Michelle: Thanks a million, Frank.
[00:03:40] Frank Abagnale: Thank you.
He even lived in China for a while.
Now Jack is a smart guy who’s used to negotiating and seeing through people’s bluffing.
A tough guy who used to play quarterback in school.
He found himself completely unskeptical.
I mean this understandably put him straight into panic mode.
And she said, “No, I’m in jail.”
And “Uh-oh.”
I asked her if she was hurt.
And she, I think she said she hurt her lip and she broke her nose or something.
[00:05:10] Michelle: And she sounded like her?
[00:06:18] Michelle: The amount, $9,000.
Jack was now poised to be the hero, bail her out and take care of this situation.
[00:06:44] Michelle: You must have been really worried about your granddaughter.
[00:06:54] Michelle: And what did the lawyer sound like?
[00:06:58] Jack: He sounded professional.
Oh, very professional.
[00:07:00] Michelle: Wow.
[00:07:11] Michelle: Yeah.
By the way, her mother was in, in, in Europe.
[00:07:28] Michelle: Okay.
[00:07:30] Jack: So I don’t talk to him.
I didn’t even have his phone number.
[00:07:38] Michelle: Wow.
So you thought you were, you were handling this.
You were doing the right thing.
[00:07:50] Michelle: And one that just keeps going.
Jack sends that $9,000 to an address in Connecticut.
He thinks, well that’s done now.
But then this lawyer character calls Jack back.
[00:08:11] Jack: He said, “We’ve got another problem.”
So you know, I mean this is really going, you know, really left field here.
[00:08:43] Michelle: Jack is beside himself with grief and worry over this.
He sends another $7,000 through the mail.
But the scammers aren’t done yet.
This lawyer has yet another problem for Jack to fix.
He’s had enough.
[00:10:03] Jack: By that time uh, I uh, decided to call her father.
Tell him to call me urgently."
[00:10:18] Michelle: When he hears back, Jack’s worst suspicions are now confirmed.
Ava has no car in New York.
I’m in my dormitory, I’m fine."
[00:10:51] Michelle: With the phone in his hand, it all feels surreal.
He has nothing left to do but spring into action.
He calls the police in Texas.
He urges them to catch these scammers, make a plan and stop this now.
And they’re up for it.
[00:11:32] Michelle: Enter the guy known around his office as the Grandparent Scam Whisperer.
[00:12:18] Michelle: You must have just been enraged at this point knowing this is all fake.
[00:12:24] Jack: I’m getting excited just reliving it with you.
[00:12:26] Michelle: I can tell.
[00:12:28] Michelle: Jack now has the scammer on the hook.
He’s turned the tables making the scammer think he’s about to get another six grand.
[00:12:48] Michelle: I love it.
[00:12:49] Kyle O’Neill: We didn’t know how sophisticated the scammers were.
We didn’t know if they were monitoring the weight of the package, so it was very imperative.
God bless him, he was, he was a good sport about it.
[00:13:20] Michelle: The trap is now set.
They communicate by radio watching as many potential escape routes as possible.
[00:13:45] Kyle O’Neill: So that’s also a part of the scam.
There’s a lot of pieces to the puzzle.
What apartments are for rent.
[00:14:33] Michelle: This is quite sophisticated.
[00:14:46] Michelle: Hah, blinded by greed.
That, that could be the title of many a podcast.
The package arrives at this apartment complex followed, soon after, by a white minivan.
The scammer has now unwittingly stepped into his own web.
Three or four guys converge on him and uh, they’re off to the races.
[00:15:24] Michelle: The guy tries to run away.
[00:16:13] Michelle: Oh, I see.
I assumed that this guy was like the perpetrator, but this is just some minion.
[00:16:22] Michelle: Of course.
[00:16:23] Kyle O’Neill: Um, he was just going to pick up a package.
[00:16:51] Michelle: The scammer is caught, jailed, and manages to get out on bail.
But as it turns out, it would have been in his own interest to stay in.
[00:17:00] Michelle: So tell me about this guy.
How old is he?
What kind of record does he have?
[00:17:25] Michelle: Oh, god.
How old a guy is this?
[00:17:27] Kyle O’Neill: Uh, he’s, he was 30.
[00:17:29] Michelle: And he, he had already been in prison multiple times?
It’s almost like a phonebook of paperwork.
I believe he was on parole and uh…
[00:17:46] Michelle: God.
Any idea how many other people he had done this kind of scam to?
They may actually think that they saved their grandkid from being in trouble.
Or like, are we talking hundreds?
[00:18:23] Kyle O’Neill: Definitely more than 10.
There are videos of him on his phone, you know, holding wads of cash.
[00:18:44] Michelle: Wow.
And do you know where the case stands right now?
[00:18:54] Kyle O’Neill: I do know what happened.
[00:18:56] Michelle: Okay.
[00:19:04] Michelle: Why?
[00:19:05] Kyle O’Neill: He’s deceased.
[00:19:09] Michelle: Well that was a surprise.
His name was Freddie Delacruz.
He lived in the Bronx.
Like what does this look like when you see all the tentacles of it?
There are plenty of people out here like this guy.
If these people applied themselves to something worthy, a worthy cause, they would be millionaires.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen for Jack.
He lost almost $20,000, and he’s processing all that happened.
[00:21:13] Michelle: Well you’re, what this shows is you’re the greatest grandfather.
Your family must have been really touched that you were willing to do this for your granddaughter.
[00:21:23] Jack: She was really, uh, you know, emotional.
[00:21:27] Michelle: Yeah.
You would do all of this for her.
[00:22:00] Kyle O’Neill: Particularly vile.
Um, and they wouldn’t even ask, they wouldn’t ask any questions.
Hey, you know, uh, Kyle’s in trouble, he needs money.
[00:23:29] Kyle O’Neill: Take a step back, take a deep breath.
Can I give you a call back in, in 30 seconds?"
Uh, that’s what I, I woulda, shoulda done.
[00:24:01] Michelle: Got it.
[00:24:02] Jack: And that’s the only thing I could have done.
And I see so many of them and so many different ways that the con artists work these scams.
They’re using technology to make it believable like the caller ID in saying it is the police department.
So it’s very convincing.
So there is a lot of information out there for scammers to play on, isn’t there?
[00:27:01] Frank Abagnale: Absolutely.
We met her many times.
[00:27:57] Michelle: For sure.
Thanks so much, Frank.
[00:27:59] Frank Abagnale: Thank you.
Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
For AARP’s The Perfect Scam, I’m Michelle Kosinski.
END OF TRANSCRIPT
Seventy-nine-year-old Jack receives a call from a young woman claiming to be his granddaughter, Grace.
The attorney claims that Grace was texting and driving and needs money for bail.
Jack is instructed to send the money in cash through the mail.
