If a family member calls you in a panic asking for help, your first instinct may be to respond immediately. And that’s what makes the grandparent scam so tricky to recognize. Scammers will use any leverage to separate you from your money, including exploiting your love for your family.
- Hi Grandma! How’s it going?
- Will? Alex?
- Yeah, it’s Alex. Listen, Grams, I’m in a bit of a jam.
This so-called Alex proceeds to tell her that he just had an accident and injured some people. He says he’s being held at the police station, and he needs $4,000 for bail. He asks her to send him the money immediately and give him her credit card number. He promises to pay her back as soon as he’s out of this mess.
What happened to Elsie
This is what happened to Jonathan Ducharme’s* mother—Alex’s* grandmother—Elsie.* She was an 81-year-old woman, living in Montmagny, and someone was trying to scam her. Thanks to the attentiveness of the staff at her caisse, she didn’t fall for it, but it came close.
Luckily, Elsie didn’t have a credit card so the scammer asked if she could withdraw the money and wire it to him in Lévis.
“He had an answer to every question my mom asked,” recounts Ducharme. The caller said his voice sounded off because his nose was hurt in the accident. The reason he called her was because he couldn’t reach anyone else and he knew he could count on her to keep a secret.
Elsie headed out to the caisse immediately, along with her sister-in-law, who was with her when she got the call. Incredibly, the scammer had the nerve to call back as they were en route!
When they arrived, staff noticed how nervous they were. That, coupled with how much money Elsie was taking out, made them suspect that something was going on.
Her advisor brought her to her office to make her feel more comfortable. Then she asked what was going on. Once she heard the whole story, the advisor called Elsie’s son and found out that Alex was safe and sound at home. At this point, Elsie realized that she was the intended victim of a scam.
This strategy can take all sorts of different forms. For example, a second scammer might pose as the grandchild’s lawyer and ask the grandparent to send them the money.
Grandparent scams and AI: What you need to know
As technology grows more sophisticated, so do scammers’ methods. Now, fraudsters are using artificial intelligence (AI) to imitate the voice of a loved one, like a grandchild, to make their calls more convincing.
They sound authentic, so scammers are able to get their victims to let down their guard.
The key to protecting yourself is understanding their techniques.
Here are four tips to help you spot this type of fraud.
4 things you can do to avoid fraud
- Be wary of urgent unexpected requests, especially when somebody's asking you to transfer money to a loved one in distress. They might also ask you to keep the call a secret. If the call is urgent and needs to be kept secret, it’s a red flag.
- Talk to your family and come up with a codeword. If someone who says they’re a family member asks you for money over the phone, ask them what the secret code is to make sure they are who they say they are. You can also ask them personal questions that only your loved one could answer.
- When in doubt, hang up and check with someone else who is close to you. When it comes to outsmarting fraudsters, two heads are always better than one. Even if the caller tries to convince you to stay on the line and not talk to anyone else, it’s always best reach out to someone you trust to double check.
- Be alert when someone contacts you, unsolicited, asking you to do something. Don’t trust the caller, don’t give them your address if you haven’t confirmed their identity, and never let someone you don’t know to come in and get money from your home.
Reporting matters!
If you think you may have been targeted by a scammer, report it to the police and to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre External link. at 1-888-495-8501. Also inform your financial institution of the incident. External link. at 1-888-495-8501. Also inform your financial institution of the incident.
To learn more about what you can do to protect yourself and detect and report different kinds of fraud, check out our Security webpage.