(Des Moines)– The Iowa Attorney General’s Office is warning area residents to be on the lookout for what’s being called a “Grandparent Scam”.
Authorities say it involves a frantic phone call made to an Iowa senior citizen claiming to be from a grandchild who is in some sort of emergency and claims they need money wired to them immediately.
Bob Brammer of the A.G’s Office says it’s nothing but a hoax. He says the scammers are clever and have a way of deceiving victims into giving them their names and personal information; or they may already have taken information from social networking websites such as MySpace or Facebook.
Brammer says the money can almost never be recovered once it’s wired and picked up. He says the best defense is not to send the money and inform authorities right away.
