Longview Couple Conned Out of Thousands of Dollars

LONGVIEW – A Longview couple are the victims of the fake grandson scam. On September 30th, the couple, in their 80s, received a total of ten calls from a private number. The caller pretended to be their grandson, who lives in Austin. The imposter claimed that he had been arrested for a DUI and needed money to get out of jail. He claimed that his lawyer “Daniel Trout” could be reached at 438-346-2025. Daniel instructed them to go to Kroger, get Money Pack cards, load them with money, then call him back and give him the numbers on the back of the cards. Before realizing that this was a scam, did as instructed, and ended up losing a large sum of money.

According to Longview police, unfortunately many times the elderly are victimized because they are trusting of others and don’t want to appear rude over the phone or to someone standing right in front of them. Many times the scam artists will threaten the victim with violence or arrest if the victim does not cooperate or comply with the demands. No one from a bank, IRS, or other business will ask for any personal information over the phone. Some scammers will even leave a call back number for the victim to return a phone call, such as in this particular scam. A call back number does not make it a validated company.

Many times the elderly will also not tell anyone once they find out they have been victimized out of embarrassment or a feeling of helplessness.

Do not give out any personal information or purchase money orders or Money Pack cards when instructed to do so from an unsolicited source.