Wed, Dec 03 2008
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Published October 10, 2008 09:45 pm - CARTHAGE, Mo. — Delpha Speak got what could have been the most expensive phone call of her life on Thursday morning. Speak, a 72-year-old retiree living in Carthage, thought her grandson-in-law was in some trouble. Phone check with police saves Carthage grandparents from scam By Greg Grisolano ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com CARTHAGE, Mo. — Delpha Speak got what could have been the most expensive phone call of her life on Thursday morning. Speak, a 72-year-old retiree living in Carthage, thought her grandson-in-law was in some trouble. “He said, ‘Grandma,’ and I said, ‘Which grandson?’” said Speak, who has 13 grandchildren. “He said, ‘Guess,’ and I said, ‘Oh, it’s Jamie,’ and he said, ‘Yeah, it’s Jamie.’” Speak said her grandson-in-law lives in Kansas City, and frequently travels for business reasons, so she didn’t think it implausible that the caller said he was in Niagra Falls, Ontario, Canada. “He said, ‘Grandma, I’m really in trouble,’” she said. “He said, ‘I’ve had a car wreck and I have to have $5,000 to get out of the police station.’” Speak said the caller urged her to wire the money via MoneyGram at Wal-Mart, and begged her not to call her granddaughter. “By now he was crying almost,” she said. “He said, ‘Don’t tell anyone, because I didn’t tell anyone I was coming here.’” Speak said after she hung up, her husband, Bill, headed to the bank to the get the money. While he was gone, she decided to call the police station and find out what was going on. “As soon as I said do you have Jamie, my grandson, there, they said, ‘Ma’am it’s a scam,’” she said. “They’re calling people from out of the country, and it’s always grandparents.” While not a commonly occurring scam in Missouri, a spokesman for Attorney General Jay Nixon said the scammer’s line is a familiar one. “That’s the classic grandparents’ scam,” said Travis Ford, consumer educator for Nixon’s office. “The scammer doesn’t know the granchild’s name, so they call and say grandma and hope the grandparent gives them the name of the person they’re impersonating.” Ford said his office has one other documented case of the scam, which nearly bilked $8,000 out of a central Missouri man earlier this year. “Our advice is for grandparents to stop and collect their thoughts for a minute, and then do whatever they can to verify the location of their grandchildren,” he said. 
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