Scammers enact grandchildren

ONEIDA City Police are alerting area residents to a phone scam which has already been played on one Oneida man.

In this case, the victim an elderly male receives a phone call from someone stating they are a grandchild of the victim and they have been under arrest in another country and need bail money agitated to them. After that money is sent by wire to an out of the country location and the victim later learns that their grandchild was not in that country.

Federal authorities are contacted as the money is picked up outside the country where tracking down the pickup of the money is difficult due to the delay in reporting and the locations used by the suspects. Police says: They will aim elderly victims as they may have grandchildren who do not live nearby or they are not capable to quickly confirm that it is not the grandchild. A previous incident of this kind of scam, with a deviation, happened few years ago in which the victim was advised that a grandchild had been concerned in an accident in Canada, seized and needed money related to the accident. But in that case no money had been sent. The location of where the money was to be sent was tracked back to a hotel in Toronto and the information was turned over to Canadian authorities.

If anyone receiving a call of these types were asked to contact police.

Now Scammers have targeting door-to-door recently with the "Blacktop Scam”. By means of internet access, it’s easy to read about these scams and know how to avoid them. It is important for the police and potential victims to make scam baiting and to get the word out to newspapers and family. So everyone will be aware of these scams.