Grandparents beware: Summer is scam season

Summer is here, people are traveling and scammers are turning up the heat.

I’m talking about what the Federal Trade Commission calls family emergency scams, often known as the grandparent scam because it frequently targets wellmeaning seniors.

Since 2010, the FTC has received more than 40,000 complaints about grandparent scams. Agency officials figure many more instances go unreported. Losses are estimated to run in the tens of millions of dollars.

Joe Shumovich, 83, doesn’t consider himself an easy mark. The Northridge resident says he reads the newspaper every day and stays up to date on current events.

“I never thought I’d be the sort of person something like this could happen to,” Shumovich told me.

But he recently came this close to getting fleeced.

The phone rang and the man on the other end of the line identified himself at Steven Williams, an employee at the U.S. Embassy in Athens. He said Shumovich’s grandson had been arrested on drug charges and was in serious trouble.

Shumovich replied that he didn’t have a grandson, although he did have a nephew.

“The caller picked up on this right away,” Shumovich said. “He said he’d made a mistake and that it was my nephew who was in trouble.”

Here, the caller said, talk to him yourself. A new voice came on the line.

“It didn’t sound exactly like my nephew,” Shumovich said. “But it was hard to tell. He was moaning and incoherent. He was obviously in distress.”

The first caller got back on and said the Greek courts required a payment to allow Shumovich’s nephew to leave the country. Shumovich was instructed

to immediately wire $1,200 to an Athens address via Western Union.

Helpfully, the caller was able to provide the location of Western Union offices near Shumovich’s home.

“I was all set to head out and wire the money,” Shumovich said. “Then I told my wife and daughter what was happening. They said I should first call my nephew’s number.”

What do you know? Shumovich’s nephew was at his Pittsburgh home, safe and sound.

Needless to say, Shumovich promptly scotched his plans to wire money abroad. But that didn’t stop the scammers.

“They called at least five times that day asking where the money was,” Shumovich said. “They became increasingly angry. When my daughter got on the line and told them to stop, they cussed at her.”

Shumovich has no idea how the scammers got his name and phone number — probably from some database or mailing list. But his experience offers all the lessons required to avoid being a victim of this racket.

First, be wary of any call purporting to be about a friend or relative in trouble overseas. And don’t help the scammers by offering personal information, as Shumovich did when he disclosed that he didn’t have a grandson but did have a nephew.

If you want to test the veracity of the call, offer some misinformation and see what happens. Also, request information about the distressed family member that a stranger likely wouldn’t know — but even then, be careful.

“Social networking sites make it easier than ever to sleuth out personal and family information,” the FTC says in an online tip sheet.

Call back to confirm the situation, but not to a number given by the scammers. Go online and find out the number of the embassy or police station where the call is supposedly originating.

Don’t keep things to yourself. If a loved one is in trouble, it’s not a state secret.

“Con artists may insist that you keep their request for money confidential to keep you from checking out their story and identifying them as impostors,” the FTC says. “Victims of this scam often don’t realize they’ve been tricked until days later.”

If you get one of these calls, report it to officials. It may not result in the scammers’ being caught — they’re often based in other countries. But it will help investigators know what’s happening.

And don’t think you’re too slick to be conned.

“You get caught up in the moment,” Shumovich said. “You’re thinking only about your relative. And these guys on the phone are really sophisticated.” You’re a winner

Jennifer Parasofski, 44, must be the luckiest person in Southern California. She told me she’s been getting about two dozen calls a day informing her that she’s won assorted lotteries.

“In some, it’s $500,000,” the Woodland Hills resident said. “In others it’s $2.5 million.”

There’s a consistent thread to all the calls: In each case, Parasofski is instructed to wire a few thousand bucks to cover taxes and insurance for her winnings.

And in a particularly impressive wrinkle, she said one scammer called to say he was an FBI agent and to advise her not to fall for any bogus lottery scams.

The caller went on to state that his investigation had revealed that Parasofski really did win one lottery, and he could help release the money if she wired him a few thousand bucks to cover taxes and insurance.

She said she reported the calls to the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission. Both agencies said they were powerless to do anything, although the FTC emphasized that no legitimate lottery requires winners to pay cash upfront.

Even so, I’m thinking I can help. All Parasofski has to do is send me a few thousand bucks....