Imagine you are 88 years old and your grandson and his new wife live in Germany. You have not seen him in a couple months and know that he is a good boy, but his idea of fun is vacationing in Iran or Afghanistan.
One morning you receive a call from a man who identifies himself as Sergeant Holt from the United States Embassy in Germany. He says “I’m sorry to report that Matthew and Heidi have been locked up for drug possession. They were pulled over tonight and marijuana was found in the backseat of their car. They are being held in jail here.”
Your heart skips a beat as Sergeant Holt continues, “Bail has been set at $3,000 and they are asking you to help them.”
Now distressed, you ask to speak to your grandson. Sergeant Holt puts him on. A wailing voice comes on and pleads with you to send the money.
“Why not you brother? Why not your parents? Why are you asking me?”
“I am so embarrassed and I don’t want them to know. Please Grandma. I’ll pay you back, but I really need the $3,000. Please.”
Being a good grandmother, you agree and Sergeant Holt comes back on. You ask how you can get the money to your grandson.
He says to go out to Safeway (the grocery store you always shop at, right down the street) and purchase six $500 Visa gift cards and then call back 438.345.0135 for further instructions. You don’t have $3,000 lying around, so you go to your bank and withdraw the cash.
Then you go to Safeway and buy the six $500 gift cards as described. You get home and decide to call your grandson’s father. Perplexed, he tells you that Matthew is not in jail (after calling him) and that this was a scam.
Relieved but still frightened, you call Visa and are successfully able to refund the gift cards – a check will be mailed to you.
* * *
Have you ever received those scam e-mails from a friend who family member begging for money who claims to be robbed and stranded in a foreign country? I get those all the time, but I’ll admit the first time I received one I did think twice – it sounded plausible.
Imagine you are my 88 year-old grandma and someone claiming to be from the government calls up and immediately name-drops her grandson and his wife and correctly identifies what country they are in. Then the con-artists put someone on who sounds like me: I suppose we all sound a bit less like ourselves when crying.
Of course the Montreal telephone number (438.345.0135) and especially the request for gift cards should have been a huge clue this was a scam. But come on, my grandma’s a trusting person. How could she imagine this was an elaborate hoax to defraud her?
To be clear, I was not in das Gefängnis and I’ve never been in jail before.
* * *
My blood is boiling just thinking about what happened yesterday.
After I spoke to my father, I telephoned my grandmother who was audibly distraught. I calmed her down and assured her that Heidi and I were fine and that this was all a hoax.
She was almost shell-shocked and I became angrier and angrier as I listened to her tell me the story, thankful that she loved me enough to send $3,000 to a voice on the phone, and thus all the more livid that someone would take advantage of her in this way.
While I cannot say I regret what happened next, I wish I would have recorded it or perhaps just turned the number over to the police.
As soon as I hung up the phone with my grandmother, I called back 438.345.0135. A woman answered on the first ring, stating, “US Embassy”. Very calmly, I asked to speak to Sergeant Holt. She said, “One moment please,” and either transferred my call or more likely handed the cell phone over to her accomplice.
A man who sounded like a middle-aged white American answered the phone, identifying himself as Sergeant Holt. I first asked him where he was located. He said Germany.
Then, very slowly in my best Dirty Harry impression, I said, “Let me offer you this piece of advice. You better watch your back because one day, when you least expect it, you are going to get a bullet in the back of your head.” You have to imagine how slowly I said this, in a raspy whisper of dejection as if this was a done-deal.
The phone went dead. I redialed and reached voice mail. I robo-called back a thousand times over the next several hours, but I figure the scammers had just pulled the SIM card out of the phone.
I googled 438.345.0135 and found a couple recent reports of similar scam attempts. Not very smart to use the same SIM card for multiple crimes, but perhaps they have permanently discarded the SIM card after my pep talk. I do not speak French, so perhaps one of you can call 438.345.0135 and let me know what the recorded message is.
* * *
My mind immediately wanders to Charles Bronson, star of the 70s Death Wish trilogy. That’s terrible, isn’t it? In the first movie, Paul Kersey took the law into his own hands by avenging the brutal murder of his wife and raping of his daughter by shooting up a handful of thugs in New York City who had eluded law enforcement hands.
A civilized society cannot condone vigilantism, but watch that movie (or think about it in real life) and don’t tell me you fail to struggle with the uneasy fact you are rooting for the vigilante.
As I dreamed of the way I would dismember the two con artists who dared take advantage of my grandmother, I stopped and thought of my post two days ago on the threat of violence in wake of the MH17 crash. Probably best I practice what I preach and pray for their souls instead of plotting their disfiguration.
I do not have a lot of faith in the LAPD to deal with matters like this, and saw little utility in alerting them. What could they do to chase down a cell phone? I doubt they would have dropped everything to run a triangulation. I fear for my grandma, who lives alone in her own house in Los Angeles. There are some nasty people in this world and it makes me want to be less personal, not more personal, in this blog for the safety of those I love. Where else could the scammers have found out that I married Heidi and live in Germany? I haven’t even updaed my Facebook status yet…
And yet life goes on. While my grandmother continues to recover from the trauma of yesterday and I work on my anger management, I would still advise the scammers – if you are reading this now – to be very careful. If and when I find you, you will regret ever being born.
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
this also happened to my grandfather. i do not know how they find out where I live, but luckily he called my uncle, who called me. They called the police and when the police arrived at his house, the scammer called back and my grandfather was instructed to keep him on the line while the police were listening on the other end. Unfortunately it was tracked to a disposable phone and sadly it turns out there is nothing that they could do. So the scammer just moves on to the next victim. It’s a numbers game.
Wow. That’s insane. I love and encourage your response. Good job Matt.
The message in french says
You have reached the voice mail public mobile (this is a prepaid Canadian cell phone carrier) and than says the phone number 438.345.0135 the mailbox is full if you want to leave your phone number press 1
Scams from montreal area phone numbers is very usual I get this all the time they usually do telephone spoof that it’s shows a real phone # and when I call back I get to a real office or just a innocent person
Sorry to hear that Matthew and that happened to my family couple times in South America where they live. The scam there is a little different where people call from inside the prisons (yes, prisoners manage to have cells phones in the jail there) and they tell someone from your family that they kidnapped you. Your family member gets very nervous and that is when all goes bad since they put someone screaming on the phone as if it was you and the level of adrenaline goes so high that they cannot see that it is not you on the other side of the line. They then wire money so you can get free. I would say that in your case someone read your blog and tried to get money from your family. My concern is that they found your grandma phone number and connected that to you. That scares me. It was not a random call but they targeted you and her. I would love to react like you did but I would be afraid to do it. I hope you did mot use your cell phone to make that call. I would inform the police on what happened mainly because they knew a lot about you and your family. Hope they forget about you.
Matthew, while I wholeheartedly understand what you did, I really wouldn’t say things like that. It could get you in serious trouble. I also wouldn’t post something to the internet admitting it. Could be the basis for civil or criminal liability. Making death threats is a crime in most states.
@John: Appreciate your comment, but I did not make a death threat. I have no intention of killing these people and a death threat cannot be lodged against an anonymous person in an anonymous location. I merely expressed the common phrase, “What goes around comes around.”
In California, a criminal threat requires three elements —
1.) that person is thereby placed in a state of reasonably sustained fear for his/her safety or for the safety of his/her immediate family,
2.) the threat is specific and unequivocal and
3.) you communicate the threat verbally, in writing, or via an electronically transmitted device
There can be no reasonably sustained fear for safety because of the anonymous nature of the person and the threat is neither specific nor unequivocal.
Going to have to agree with John here, in addition remember this person probably lives in Canada (being that it’s a throw away sim number from Montreal) laws of Canada are going to apply here, not California.
I quoted CA law because that is where I will soon reside, but…
We have no idea where he was calling from and even if he was in Canada, Canadian law would not apply–German law would apply because I was in Germany.
German Strafgesetzbuch § 241 states —
Section 241 Threat
(1) Whoever threatens a human being with the commission of a serious criminal offense directed against him or someone close to him, shall be punished with imprisonment for not more than one year or a fine.
(2) Whoever against his better judgment feigns to another person that the realization of a serious criminal offense directed against him or a person close to him is imminent, shall be similarly punished.
I never threatened to kill him and though part two applies, there was no imminence in my statement.
As an aside, I highly doubt he was in Montreal.
Really now, you guys are debating the legality of what Matthew did…
Interesting that everyone here is trying to scare Matthew like he is the bad guy here. How about the law that would apply to the guy that he is supposedly threatening here? Before Matthew gets in trouble I would guess the guy that tried to extort his family would be in trouble first.
We will see. I would be surprised if I ever heard from him and as a trained lawyer, would love the encounter.
Matt,
I too would be extremely pissed if something like this happened to me or my family. So far the only fraud I’ve fallen victim to is credit card fraud. Sure I’ve had other random attempts at fraud when trying to sell my car or rent my house, but never before something like this.
Food for thought: Yet after reading your post, and your comments I too have to wonder if your threat could be taken seriously and what context of the law could you be violating by such threat.You say that you didn’t threaten him, yet you wrote that you said
“then, very slowly in my best Dirty Harry impression, I said, “Let me offer you this piece of advice. You better watch your back because one day, when you least expect it, you are going to get a bullet in the back of your head.” You have to imagine how slowly I said this, in a raspy whisper of dejection as if this was a done-deal.” I believe this qualifies as a death threat. You didn’t say you were going to do it, but nevertheless that’s a threat. After all normal joe blows don’t recieve bullets for no reason to the back of their heads.
I am sure you were just trying to scare the person, however a quick google search of Criminal Code of Canada (where this guy appears to be calling from) states:
264.1. Uttering threats
264.1 (1) Every one commits an offence who, in any manner, knowingly utters, conveys or causes any person to receive a threat
(a) to cause death or bodily harm to any person;
(b) to burn, destroy or damage real or personal property; or
(c) to kill, poison or injure an animal or bird that is the property of any person.
Punishment
(2) Every one who commits an offence under paragraph (1)(a) is guilty of
(a) an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years; or
(b) an offence punishable on summary conviction and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding eighteen months.
As this crook was calling from Montreal, I believe you technically could be charged in Canada. Would you be extradited, probably not, but could receive a warrant for your arrest if the decided to go after you? anIf so, that would mean no more flights through Canada! As a star alliance loyalist that could be bad news for you!
Further fun reading: https://www.defencelaw.com/utter-threats.html
I am no law professional, but to me this is clearly a threat. Also it appears as though German laws aren’t on your side either. However will this guy going to press charges against you, no. He’d be stupid to and out himself to the police for trying to commit fraud himself. Yet either way John does have a point.
What I’m curious about is how they got all that personal information on you? Your Grandmother’s phone #, your info (which might be a little more public because of your blog)
That you use marijuana? 😉
Oh and as an aside, I find it interesting when people start saying “oh that wasn’t a nice thing to do. You shouldn’t threaten people. (not that you even were) You could get into trouble, etc, etc” I wonder what they would do in the same situation?
I have often wondered how I would react to a Death Wish type event in my life.
@Patrick: That was the point of my post — I was surprised by my reaction and would hate to think of my thoughts had something more serious happened to someone I loved.
Sadly, I can get info on just about anyone using the internet — all you need is a clue (my blog post) and everything else is there if you really want it.
Same scam happened to my grandma. Luckily, she called me on my cell phone before actually sending the money. I think they target people in retirement communities.
My 86 year old mother has been scammed a few times now. Luckily it has been for less than $300.00 so far…. I live in fear that she will get scammed out of her entire bank account one day. I keep telling her over and over that these are scams and yet she believes them. I would like to do terrible things to these people as well. Terrible painful things, if only I could find them.