At 73, Grandmother Helps Police To Outwit Scammers Posing As Her Grandson Asking For $8,000 Bail

Jan 25, 2022 by apost team

A grandmother from Seaford, New York, received a strange call from someone on Jan. 20, 2022. The person on the other end of the line was claiming to be one of her grandsons and was in urgent need of help and money. The man claimed that he was in jail and needed thousands of dollars to be sent to him in order to bail him out.

The entire situation ended up being a scam. Unfortunately, this type of situation happens too often to the elderly. According to the FBI, this is known as elderly fraud and details how criminals work to gain their targets’ trust in order to financially scam them. These targets are usually senior citizens, as they tend to be more trusting and polite and have the tendency to be persuaded by the rehearsed scammers.

Jean, a grandmother from the Long Island area, knew that she was being scammed almost immediately after receiving a phone call from someone claiming to be her grandson. Rather than hang up, she decided to play along with the scammer and his plan. In the meantime, she also made sure to get a hold of the police.

After several calls back and forth between the scammers, Jean devised her own plan and pretended to get the money together as she geared up to meet the second scammer, who was pretending to be a bail bondsman. She also had the cops on standby for the meet-up. The grandmother managed to outsmart the would-be thieves and has since been sharing her story in hopes of helping others be mindful of potential scams.

A 73-year-old grandmother was almost the victim of a financial scam, but she made sure that that didn’t happen. According to CBS2, Jean received a phone call from someone claiming to be her grandson and another call from someone claiming to be his lawyer, as he had been arrested for drunk driving and needed money for bail.

“I knew he was a real scammer,” Jean said. “I just knew he wasn’t going to scam me.” After the man said he was arrested for drunk driving, Jean immediately knew she was being scammed since none of her grandsons drive. However, she decided to play along and agreed to meet up with the person on the phone to give him $8,000 for bail.

The grandmother explained, “I told him I had the money in the house, and I figured, he’s not going to fall for that. Well, he fell for that hook, line and sinker.” Jean also made sure to call the police.

A man pretending to be a bail bondsman later arrived to collect the money, and Jean handed him an envelope filled with paper towels. As the man started walking away, two officers moved quickly to grab hold of him and took him into custody. According to CBS2, Joshua Estrella Gomez was then arrested and charged with attempted grand larceny in the third degree and will be arraigned on Feb. 3, 2022.

Since then, Jean has been sharing her story and her “gotcha” moment to remind others to stay alert. According to CBS2, police also say to call them before arranging any kind of meet-up with someone you think could potentially be a scammer.

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What do you think about this grandmother’s response to someone trying to scam her? Have you ever heard of someone being in a situation similar to this? Let us know, and feel free to send this to your loved ones, too.