Canadian Airgun Forum

One of our elderly friends got a call a few days ago. She is fairly sharp and we have spoken before about the thieves that call and try to swindle people but this one rattled her.
The caller said that he was her grandson Michael, he talked about his parents and his siblings before getting to the point about wanting money.
The caller had so much information about her family that she started to doubt herself, but it did not feel right to her so she hung up. She then called her son and confirmed that this was a scam and Michael had not called her.
When she told this story to my wife they both were worried and wondered how this scammer had so much information....
I suggested that you do not have to look very hard on social media to find people that put every minute detail of their lives out for all to see; children's names, birthdays, pictures of family gatherings with all attendees helpfully labeled so you can even know what Michael looks like. Of course you can then follow the threads to Michael's page and see what his interests are so you have a great story to hit Grandma with.
The number of spam/fraud/phishing messages that I get goes up and down and most are the very obvious "Hello this is Visa, there has been a suspicious transaction on your account...." type message, but the reason that they keep calling is because every now and then they hit the right vulnerable person. This new one was the most detailed and dare I say, sophisticated, scam that I have heard of.
Please keep this in mind and perhaps check in on any vulnerable people that you care about and let them know that they should be suspicious and they can call you before sending money or giving any bank or credit information to ANYONE even if it sounds like Michael.

Stay safe everyone,
Rob27