PSA: the grandparents' scam

February 2019, Parthenon-Athens, Greece

Five days ago, I woke up in Athens, in our friend's apartment with a terrace view of the Parthenon.

It was my birthday and we had arrived the day before, a little miraculously, after four plane cancellations due to dramatic weather conditions.

So I'm birthday happy and drinking the view ; but very jet lagged and brewing an URI gifted by a plane passenger who coughed on me all night... so I have limited bandwidth for complications.

Which has never ever, in the history of humankind, stopped life from happening to the best relaxation plans.

Jim, my husband, reads me an unusual text from our oldest son. It's after midnight (where our son is) but the message says something along the lines of "had a very confusing conversation with grandma and grandpa-I think they were very badly scammed."

I tell my brain to function well.
It laughs at me.

We eventually track my parents.
They are agitated and upset.
They forget to wish me a happy birthday (ok I don't care at that point but it tells me how upset they are.)

The summary of what happened is that someone they felt had EXACTLY our oldest son's voice called them sobbing. The faux-son told them that he was at a funeral for a friend in LA, and was in a hit and run (NOBODY in my family would likely try to drive in LA but faux-son was sobbing and that was high voltage to both of my parents' amygdala and also, who is this faux son who hits and run?) and faux son (and his lawyer who later also got on the phone, a lawyer called--wait....called Mickey Cohen-apparently not sufficiently busy at the moment) needs a whole lot of money urgently or son will spend two weeks in jail while awaiting judgement.

I know you are reading this and thinking this is way too obvious.
If you know my parents, two very intelligent people, you are thinking there is no way.

Way: you are (probably) not grandparents. With amygdala firing uncontrollably because your baby is in trouble and crying and begging for help.

This is a common scam. The grandparents scam. Very very common, according to the bank that eventually was able to help my parents to STOP the whole lot of money they had routed to leave their bank account.

Managing birthdaying, jet lagging, worrying a whole lot, long distance helping parents and checking on real son and visiting the Parthenon: not a scam.
Just our life which does not take a break from being complicated on birthdays.

Please take note and warn your parents.
Warn yourselves.
There are infinite variations of amygdala shocking, irrational behavior activating scams and not all of them have giant fake signs like a lawyer called Mickey Cohen.

Till Later,

Anne