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CLINTON — He can laugh about it now. However, when Nathan Brough got out of bed Wednesday morning, he wasn’t laughing at all.
"This morning I woke up more upset than ever," he said.
It’s all because of a phone call he received Tuesday afternoon. When Brough answered his phone, he heard a young girl crying, saying "Sorry, daddy." Then a man got on the phone saying he had kidnapped the girl.
"He basically tells me, you know, 'We have your daughter. She means nothing to me. I’m going to kill her if you don’t comply with everything I say,'" Brough said.
Complying meant staying on the line, not asking anyone for help and sending money.
So, staying on the phone, Brough went to his bank, got $3,000, and using Western Union from several stores, sent the money.
"What money I have isn’t worth losing my daughter," he said. "I’ll comply because I don’t know what else to do."
Outside a Smith’s store near his home, is where the caller told Brough he would get his daughter. Then, the call hung up.
Brough immediately called his wife, who said their daughter was fine and had been all along.
"I didn’t realize this is something people would stoop to without it actually being a real threat," Brough said.
Brough reported the incident to the Clearfield Police Department since he was at work in Clearfield when the call came in.
According to NBC News, federal investigators say scammers have been targeting hundreds of families across the country with this type of scam, with the calls likely coming from inmates in Mexican prisons, and personal information coming from your own social media posts.
"They’re learning your child’s name, they’re learning where your child goes to school, and then they refer to your child by name," said Sgt. Jim Cota, with the Laguna Beach Police Department in California, where several people have been reporting this scam.
Brough said it was believable enough and he never thought he’d fall for a scam.
"I got taken. It’s sad, but it’s true," he said. "I don’t want anybody else to be taken."
