Crime & Safety

Older Woman a Victim of A Phone Scam

The woman was trying to help her grandson.

An 84-year-old Oconee County woman told Oconee County Sheriff's deputies late last week that she had lost $2,600 in a phone scam that involved wiring the money to Mexico.

During the last week of November, the woman received a phone call from someone claiming to be her grandson in Mexico City. The man told her that he had been stopped by the police, who found marijuana in the trunk of his car. He was in jail in the U.S. Embassy and needed her to write $1,350 from Western Union. So she did.

On November 27th, She got another call from her "grandson," who asked her to send an additional $1,250 so he could hire an attorney. She wired that money at Western Union as well.

When she later talked to her real grandson, he said he hadn't called and asked for money and that the whole incident was a scam. 


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