DELMAR — The phone rings and on the other end of the line is someone saying your grandchild is in jail in another state and needs bail. You are their only hope. The caller is convincing.
Another claims they are a federal agent and they will put money in your account so the FBI can catch a criminal. One catch is that the agent says you have to send the suspect the money out of your account so the Feds can track it and catch the bad guys. You are the agent’s best hope to get them. The caller swears you to secrecy, even to your family and of course the local police. The caller is convincing.
The scams sound hard to believe, but these are two examples of recent scams that Bethlehem police Detectives had to investigate and attempt to recover a victim’s money.
The frequency of financial crimes, in many different forms, is growing here and everywhere.
Luckily, in both cases, the money never made it to the criminals, but most times the criminal cannot be brought to justice.
“It could be anything financial related. Bank account or a grandparent scam, which we are beginning to see a lot more of,” Bethlehem Detective Sgt. James Cross said. “People are taking advantage of elderly people so much more and it is a problem because they are much more reluctant to call the police or family member because they don’t want to admit that they are losing their faculties a little bit and they get embarrassed.”
Criminals are very good at drawing victims in and that is when it…
