Occurred Thursday December 20, 2012 10:30am      1100 Clare Drive       Phone Scam         1212200045

An 83 year old man received a phone call from a man who claimed to be a clergyman calling from a US embassy in Mexico City. The caller told the elderly individual that his daughter was in custody for possession of marijuana in a Mexican jail, and that he needed to wire $1600 dollars via Western Union in order for her to go to court and then be sent home on an airplane. The caller stated that the US government would later reimburse all the money.  The 83 year old man notified CCPD. When officer Fedler called back “Pastor O’ Conner”, he explained that getting the gentleman’s daughter to court in Mexico would be difficult since she was actually just fine in Missouri where she was supposed to be.

Fortunately in this case, the intended victim was suspicious and contacted the Corpus Christi Police Department first.  These scams continue however because many elderly fall prey to these highly convincing professional criminals. In many cases when victims learn that they were fooled, they are too embarrassed to tell anyone else. Please take a little time to talk about such scams with your family, church and community groups and remind them not to give out banking, credit card or other personnel information to anyone who calls you over the phone.  There are many resources online to educate folks about what is traditionally known as the “Grandparent Scam”. The link below is from the US state Department.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/financial_scams/financial_scams_5608.html