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SALT LAKE CITY — It's an old scam that preys on trust and love, and thieves are still making money at it.
The so-called "granny scam" costs senior citizens an estimated $3 billion every year, investigators say.
Kathleen Blodgett of Murray and her sister recently got one of the most distressing calls they had ever received.
“It sounded like a young man, sounded like our nephew crying for help, and he was calling for my grandmother,” Blodgett said.
The young man used a particular nickname for Blodgett’s grandmother, so they immediately thought the call was real.
“He was saying, ‘I need help. I need help. I’m in so much trouble. I’ve been in an accident and a lady has been badly injured,’” Blodgett said.
Her “nephew” then handed the phone to an alleged officer.
“The policeman gives his badge number and says his name and everything,” Blodgett explained.
The "officer" told Blodgett and her sister their nephew was a passenger in a car that smashed into another one on a freeway in Salt Lake. The impact killed the woman driving the other car and police found all sorts of narcotics.
“So the policeman said there is bail. Amount: $8,000. ‘You need to get the cash together and then call me back and I will tell you what we’re going to do,’” Blodgett said.
The “officer” also said there was a gag order prohibiting them from talking about it.
The intensity of it was terrible. I felt like we were being held hostage.
–Kathleen Blodgett
“He got very forceful with my sister and he said, ‘You’d better not tell anybody,’ and he was very threatening, ‘because you’re going to be in a lot of trouble,’” Blodgett said.
Det. Jeff Maglish with the Murray City Police Department said, “They try to use the emotion, the heartstrings, to get these people to react quickly.”
Maglish said these callers are often professional criminals. They skillfully persuade someone to send money before the victim has had time to think it through.
“They’ve done it for years,” he said. “They do it from all over the world.”
Blodgett and her sister went to the bank to gather $8,000 to bail out her nephew.
“The banker asked us what do we need the money for. ‘Oh, it’s just personal,’” Blodgett said.
“These banks have trained their tellers on those types of questions,” Maglish said, “especially if someone comes in and asks for a large amount of money.”
“They’re just asking, they’re not trying to be snoopy or anything like that. They’re actually trying to help these people,” he added.
Once they had the money, Blodgett and her sister called the supposed officer. He told them FedEx was on its way to pick it up.
Then Blodgett finally broke her silence and texted her brother, the father of her supposedly jailed nephew.
“I said, ‘What is a gag order and what is obstruction of justice?’ He called back right away (and said), ‘What is this all about?’” she said.
Within a few minutes, Blodgett got a call from her real nephew.
“It’s like, 'Oh, my heavens, are you OK?'” Blodgett said. “'Yeah, I’m just getting ready to go to work,’ (he said).”
That call came just as FedEx knocked on her door.
“I just inched the door open. I said, ‘It’s canceled.’ And the FedEx man said OK and he left,” Blodgett said."
She considered the experience an extremely close call.
“The intensity of it was terrible,” she said. “I felt like we were being held hostage.”
The con artists may have gotten the nickname for Blodgett's grandmother from a posting on Facebook or some other social media.
