Fraud Alert 227

******Alert #227 ******

Lt. Irvin Robinson of the Henderson Police Department reports that four elderly residents of Vance County were victimized this past week by criminals running a variation of the so-called grandparent scam.  In most “grandparent” scams, the perpetrators ask victims to wire money to a city in another state or country.  These perpetrators, however, sent someone to the victim’s door to collect cash for a nephew or grand-nephew who supposedly was stranded with car trouble and needed money for repairs.  In each incident, the scam began with someone calling and using the actual name of a nephew of the victim.  In two instances, the victims told the caller that he did not sound like the nephew in question, whereupon the scammer claimed that he had a cold.  The scammer stated that a person named Larry Johnson would come to the door and collect the money.  A person using such a name would, in fact, show up a few minutes later.

 ******End of Alert******