Elderly exploiters can be ‘so smooth’

by Trevor Baratko

Sep. 18, 2012

“Grandma, before you say anything, I want you to know I don’t do drugs. But I have a problem.”

With those words, the world seemed to stop for Georgiana Moser of Leesburg.

The call came one morning earlier this summer. Moser was sleeping in, something she said she rarely does. Still waking up, she answered and heard that soft, timid sentence from who she thought was her grandson, William.

“Please don’t tell mom and dad. The officer will tell you what to do,” the young man continued.

William and a friend, it was soon explained by a so-called cop, had been traveling through Canada in a rental car. After being pulled over for speeding, the cop said, a small amount of drugs was found in the trunk.

“He told me, ‘the drugs weren’t enough to be considered trafficking, and, given it’s a rental car, the drugs may not even be his,’” Moser recalled the cop telling her.

“He really said it’s just a case of William being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said.

This cop was just “so smooth,” Moser explained. Kind and calming, the officer told Moser that her grandson had spent the night in jail with his friend. The friend’s parents had just sent money for bond, and William wanted to call his grandma to see if she’d be willing to shell out the bond money.

“He said he really didn’t want his parents to find out,” Moser, 83, said.

Two-thousand dollars. Moser would need to send $2,000 to get her only grandson out of a Canadian jail, later described vaguely as the “Montreal jail” by the officer. The grandmother could wire the money to a local bondsman, but that would mean the arrest would be permanently on the young man’s record, the cop claimed. If she wired the money to a different bond company, one in South America, the arrest wouldn’t show up on his record, however.

Reflecting on that morning weeks later, Moser can see that maybe she wasn’t thinking straight. She wasn’t entirely awake, she notes. But more than anything, the man pretending to be a cop was just “so convincing.” He slowly walked her through what happened, stressed that her grandson hadn’t necessarily done anything wrong and wasn’t in danger, and carefully detailed what needed to be done in order to ensure the grandson’s safety.

 For seniors themselves, measures they can take to avoid being the target of fraud include:
*Eliminating paper checks – social security, disability, insurance – whenever possible and opting for direct deposit;
*Keeping in touch with friends and family to avoid isolation;
*Placing the senior’s number on the do-not-call registry (donotcall.gov);
*Issuing a trusted friend or relative the power of attorney;
*Never giving out any personal banking or credit card info to anyone who seems suspect.
Moreover, if a financial, medical or insurance offer requires a quick decision, refrain from acting in haste. For her part, Moser expounds on this line of thought.
“If something like this happens, just take 30 minutes and calm down. Take 30 minutes and go to the sheriff’s office and talk about what happened,” she says.

 SOURCE:      The LoudounTimes
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