Yesterday, my brother called my grandma. He told her about how he was stuck in Canada because he had been in a car accident, and something about insurance fucking him over, and how he's going to need $10,000 wired to him so he can get back home. She had her Alzheimer's-ridden husband drive her around all day, first trying to get the money (the bank apparently gave her some shit about trying to access her own goddamn money), and then trying to figure out how to wire it to him. She went to Wal-Mart, but the employees were inept and didn't know how to handle that much money.
My grandma only has a land line and doesn't have caller ID, so she called my mom to get my brother's phone number. She didn't mention that she was trying to wire him money, because my mom wasn't supposed to know about how he wrecked his car and got stranded in Canada.
When she called my brother back to tell him about her trouble wiring the money, she found out that my brother wasn't in Canada. He hadn't even wrecked his car. The guy she had been talking to earlier wasn't even my brother at all.
She called the cops, who came to her house and asked her if she had lost any identification recently, and then told her that there wasn't anything they could do because no fraud actually occurred. It's apparently legal to trick somebody into wasting their day and trying to send you $10,000, as long as they don't actually send you $10,000.
One of the creepy parts of the story is when my fake brother asked her if she had the money and if she'd be home later. When I heard that, it creeped me the hell out because this creep I sort of knew, a friend of a friend of a friend, is currently awaiting trial for strangling an old man to death in his home during a robbery. He probably just asked if she'd be home because that was the only place he could reach her, though, not because he was planning on strangling her and her husband. The other creepy part is when my grandma said it sounded exactly like my brother. Even after she talked to the real guy, she thought they sounded the same. That could be because the crook knows my brother, but I prefer to think it was because she's old and losing touch. It's also possible that somebody targeted my grandma specifically, because people where she lives know who my grandpa was, and think the family has money.
People are creeps.
