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That phone scam where someone gets a call from someone claiming to be a relative who's on vacation in Spain and got into some trouble and needs a few thousand dollars sent to them immediately? Someone tried to pull that on my grandparents today. The person on the other end claimed to be Irish and said we needed $2800 right away. Fortunately my grandfather's savvy enough not to fall for it. He knew we weren't in Spain and knew he wouldn't be the person we'd call if we were overseas and in trouble. He called my mom, who called Irish, who called me at work. I called my mom back and told her I thought my grandparents should let their phone company know and maybe file a police report, since it was an attempted crime. (I did a little bit of googling first and those are the steps people are being told to take in other places when this happens.) So I'm not concerned about my grandparents getting scammed and I think this particular instance is over and done.
What I'm wondering is how anyone who doesn't know us could put Irish and me - especially Irish - together with my grandparents. We live in the same town but don't have (and have never had) the same last name. They're not my contact information on anything, they're not my references for anything, they're not on Facebook, we don't have a family website for that side of the family, and I don't think I've ever mentioned them by name online, not even here. Irish thinks it's someone my youngest sister was hanging out with late last year - he turned out to be bad news all the way around - but this is a scam that's been going on for several years all over the U.S., so I have my doubts about that. I did live with my grandparents for a few weeks one summer - 27 years ago, in another state, before I was married. I suppose that information could still be out there somewhere still, but that's an awful lot of digging. I'm wondering if any of y'all have any ideas how some scammer somewhere could've figured out who my grandparents are. It's a little disturbing!
What I'm wondering is how anyone who doesn't know us could put Irish and me - especially Irish - together with my grandparents. We live in the same town but don't have (and have never had) the same last name. They're not my contact information on anything, they're not my references for anything, they're not on Facebook, we don't have a family website for that side of the family, and I don't think I've ever mentioned them by name online, not even here. Irish thinks it's someone my youngest sister was hanging out with late last year - he turned out to be bad news all the way around - but this is a scam that's been going on for several years all over the U.S., so I have my doubts about that. I did live with my grandparents for a few weeks one summer - 27 years ago, in another state, before I was married. I suppose that information could still be out there somewhere still, but that's an awful lot of digging. I'm wondering if any of y'all have any ideas how some scammer somewhere could've figured out who my grandparents are. It's a little disturbing!
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