Apparently, a crook felt the same way.

Ten days later, Owens’ 85-year-old mother in California received a phone call from Owens’ son, Tyler.

Or she thought it was Tyler. Didn’t sound like him, but he said he had a cold.

As I first reported in the Aug. 9, 2009 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Eloise Owens, who lives in Flower Mound, says the male caller told her mother that he had traveled to British Columbia, gotten into a fight, broken his arm and was in jail.

He needed $3,000 to get out. Could she wire it to him – but not tell his mother? He said he was embarrassed.

The man said just enough to make it sound true. He told her it was cold in Canada after he had been in warm weather. (The real Tyler lives in Denton.) And he asked her whether she was going to his wedding. (The real Tyler is getting married in October.)

The woman agreed to help. She wired the money from a Western Union store. But when she returned home, a man claiming to be Tyler’s lawyer called her. He said Tyler didn’t get the money because he was in jail. He asked her to go to a different Western Union store and wire another $3,000 to a different name and address. The man promised to send her a check to reimburse the first wire transfer.

She did as she was asked.

The next day, when no one called, she realized it was a scam. She never heard from either caller again.

It’s called the grandparents scam, and it’s easier than ever because of all the personal information widely available.

“She’s still devastated,” said Eloise Owens’ sister, Mary Harris. “It’s really shaken her up. She’s gone through the stages of sadness and anger. I think she’s humiliated because she always told her lady friends when they play bridge together that she would never fall for this. They’re smart women. They have their faculties. And here she is – she fell for it.”

The family filed a report with police in California, but a detective told the family that police usually go after only culprits who steal a million dollars or more, Harris said.

Eloise Owens says she feels partly responsible. She believes that details used in the scam could have come from her wedding program or her wedding Web site.

“On the program, I listed mom’s name and her city. My dad is not living, so he was not listed. That tells someone that she probably lives alone. Also, I mentioned in the wedding party my daughter-in-law-to-be. That gives the reference to the upcoming wedding of my son.”

But nobody will ever know how the thieves learned anything about the family. Sometimes con artists use obituaries or information gleaned from other public announcements to pick their targets. Sometimes they just randomly call, hoping to get the elderly.

“That was strange and alarming that someone has that information about me who theoretically shouldn’t know anything about me,” Tyler Owens said.

He was touched by his grandmother’s devotion: “She was up all night worrying about me. That was very heartwarming that she would do that.”

Harris says she is furious at Western Union for not questioning her mother more closely on two separate money transfers. After the incident, she said she argued with a customer service representative about the lack of fraud detection. “My mom got hurt in two different offices,” Harris said.

Western Union spokeswoman Kristin Kelly says employees are trained to look for fraud. The customer order form lists warnings about various situations but doesn’t mention the grandparents scam.

Kelly says the cardinal rule is never send money to someone you don’t know. But that doesn’t work here.

“This one’s tricky,” she said. “Obviously, they think they know the person they are sending the money to.

“If an agent asks the grandparent, ‘Do you know this person?,’ they’ll answer, ‘Yes, it’s my grandson.’

Fraud prevention tips: When someone calls and says, “Do you know who this is?,” don’t start tossing out family names. If the caller says, “It’s your grandson,” ask, “Which one?” Make the caller say the name.

And create a secret family password to verify identities in any emergency situation. A suggestion: watchdog.

Tips

On printed materials and Web sites such as social networking sites, name people using only first names.

Omit names of cities where relatives reside.

Don’t mention travel plans.

Be careful what information you place on the Internet about your family. Con artists can learn about relatives on popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Source: Eloise Owens