AARP ‘Fraud Wars’ Episode 5: Exposing a Grandparent Scam
Fraud expert Chris Coady discovered that her mother-in-law was sending money to a fake lawyer claiming her grandson was in jail
Chris Coady, 65, felt physically ill when she learned that her then-86-year-old mother-in-law, Joyce, was the victim of a grandparent scam. It was 2019, and Coady was working in the Michigan attorney general’s consumer education department, developing and delivering seminars on fraud. She had shared her expertise on scam prevention with many people in her life, including Joyce. But a criminal had still managed to convince Joyce that her grandson, Grant, who was in his mid-20s, had been arrested.
“It surprised me,” says Coady, who works with victim support groups as a volunteer with the AARP Fraud Watch Network. “She had told me several times about a friend of hers who had been a victim of a grandparent scam. And yet still, when it happened to her, she didn’t recognize it.”
That’s because scammers are experts at manipulating minds and exploiting emotions. “They get a potential victim in an emotional state where they can’t access logical thinking,” Coady says.
That’s exactly what happened to Joyce. And it could happen to anyone.
“I can’t get ahold of my mom,” he said, sounding distressed, “so I’m calling you. You’re my one call from jail.”
He then asked Joyce if she’d speak with a public defender named Amy Meisner. The so-called Meisner told Joyce that Grant had been driving to work that morning when he ran a red light and hit a car while answering his phone. Driving while talking on the phone is against the law, Meisner said, and the victim was an undercover police officer who’d been injured.
But, Meisner added, because of a gag order, Joyce could not discuss Grant’s case with anyone. And because Grant’s cell phone had been seized as evidence, Joyce couldn’t call or text him. The incident required total secrecy.
Requests for cash
Meisner immediately asked Joyce for $8,600 in cash for bail. Joyce sent the money, as instructed, to a supposed financial services company in New York. She then sent another $9,000 in cash by FedEx as a deposit for the undercover police officer’s surgery and wired $43,000 to the Bank of Mexico to cover the rest (the surgery would happen in Mexico, Meisner said). Joyce wired another $28,000 to the same bank, allegedly to build a ramp for the fake officer’s home.
“When Joyce and other victims of similar crimes are [only] accessing the emotional part of their brain, they’re not stopping and thinking, Why would I be sending cash for bail and cash for a surgery deposit to the same place?” Coady says.
Joyce worried about her grandson, but Meisner stayed calm, guiding Joyce while noting personal details about Grant that bolstered her credibility. “There were comments like, ‘He’s such a nice young man. I love the glasses he wears.’ And [Meisner] knew he was a teacher,” Coady says.
Six weeks after the first call, Meisner phoned Joyce. A hearing that day had gone well, she said, adding that Grant had his phone back, but it had been tapped, so she still shouldn’t call him. Joyce had, however, mailed Grant some cards and sent him some texts, sharing her love and concern, but her busy grandson never responded.
“At this point in his life, he’s a new teacher trying to find his way,” Coady explains. “He wasn’t necessarily stopping and analyzing all of the texts.”
That changed when Joyce messaged him to say that she hoped his meeting with the attorney went well. It seemed odd. Grant wondered if his grandmother was declining mentally, and spoke with other family members about his concerns. Two of Joyce’s sisters called Coady and her husband, Rob (Joyce’s son), who’d just spent an evening with her. Was Joyce OK?
“We said, ‘We had this great visit with her,’” Coady recalls. “But as we’re talking more about it — and this was the first that Rob and I had heard about the texts or anything that was going on between Grant and Joyce — we all kind of went, Oh, wait a second. She’s being scammed. Somebody’s impersonating Grant. ”
Exposing the scam
When they first told Joyce she was dealing with a scammer, she didn’t believe them. Then she discovered that Grant was fine. The thief had stolen about $92,000.
With Coady’s help, Joyce met with a financial crimes detective and filed reports with her local police department, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the state attorney general’s office.
“That was the end of it,” Coady says. “We were never contacted by any law enforcement.”
As for the so-called Amy Meisner, the family learned that she had ensnared other grandparents in the same scam. That provided little comfort for Joyce, who felt embarrassed and ashamed. Coady often sees self-blame when working with victim support groups, but, she tells victims, most scams are highly sophisticated. “Many of these crimes are perpetrated by criminal gangs who have training and resources and technology, and they have figured out how to use the human brain against us,” she says.
Lessons from Joyce’s case
Beware of secrecy. Most scammers tell victims not to tell anyone about their interactions, “because they’re trying to put a bubble around the victim and keep them away from something that would pierce it,” Coady says.
Watch for heightened emotions. When you’re emotional, you’re making decisions without accessing the logical part of your brain.
Don’t trust people who tell you to lie. When Joyce wired $43,000 to the Bank of Mexico, Meisner instructed her to tell bank staff that she was buying property south of the border. If someone offers advice on withdrawing or moving money without raising suspicions, consider that a warning sign.
Recognize the blueprint. Scams follow a pattern: You receive an unexpected call, text or email that reveals a problem, and you need to act immediately to solve it. Eventually, you pay money to someone in an unusual manner, such as using gift cards or cryptocurrency. Each step, Coady emphasizes, is a clear sign of a scam.
Talk to people you trust. If a stranger tells you not to tell anyone about your interaction, that’s a sure sign you should tell someone. You can also call the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline for free advice and support from fraud experts.
Ken Budd has written for National Geographic Traveler, Travel+Leisure, The Washington Post Magazine and many more. He is the author of a memoir, The Voluntourist.
