Evelyn Clarke picked up the phone. It was Friday evening, around 5 p.m.
Her call display said it was a private number, but she was expecting a call from a friend whose number never shows up, so she answered.
She was greeted by a slightly unfamiliar voice.
Maybe the person introduced himself as Jack (Clarke’s grandson’s name), or maybe she asked him if he was Jack—she can’t quite remember.
“But you don’t sound like Jack,” she said to him.
He told her that he had been driving his friend Shawn home from a party when he got in an accident. He had a broken nose and stitches in his mouth, and that’s why he sounded funny. He told her he was at a courthouse in Edmonton, and that he needed her to send $1,000 so he could go home.
Clarke knew the request was strange, but she also felt terrible—thinking this injured man could be her grandson. She was shaken and felt bad.
“I was just so concerned about him. Because he’s there by himself and he needs the money, I can’t get there, what can I do?” she recalled.
Clarke was so upset that she nearly sent the money, but something just didn’t feel right.
Maybe it was because her computer had been compromised a few years before, or maybe it was the slightly snarky way the man was talking to her, but Clarke held back. She asked the man to get his lawyer to call her, and at that point he hung up.
Clarke immediately called her grandson, who assured her he wasn’t at a courthouse and hadn’t been in an accident.
“As soon as I phoned my grandson, I sat down and had a good cry because I was so upset,” Clarke recalled.
“I was just shaking when I got off the phone, you know?”
Clarke realizes now that her level head and smart decision-making saved her from what was almost definitely a phone scam.
On Sept. 10 she recalled the ordeal, with the hope that by sharing her story she’ll save other senior citizens from falling for similar grifts.
“I wanted my story to be out there for others to know that this is going on and that [seniors] aren’t really stupid, we’re just sometimes gullible.”
Clarke explained that many seniors aren’t totally comfortable with computers and the internet, and that means they lack context for how to deal with situations like this. Because of that they might be a little less likely to ignore the warning bells going off in their heads, and instead follow their hearts—sending money to scam artists in the process.
“I should know better, but they get you emotionally, to start with. And boy, that knocked me right down,” Clarke said. “How easy it would have been to just not ask any questions and just send the money, because I was very upset to think that the kid is there all by himself.”
According to Scott Kirychuk of the Jasper RCMP, scam artists continue to pop up in Jasper, and he can recall a few times in recent years where they’ve actually been successful.
Last year someone sent a few thousand dollars to a person they met on the internet. Before that, another Jasperite was left on the hook for thousands and thousands of dollars when a cheque from an overseas “friend” bounced weeks after it was cashed.
Kirychuk explained that the RCMP does its best to investigate all allegations of fraud, but because many of them come from overseas it is quite a challenge.
But that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t report to the police when they think they have been or were almost scammed.
In cases like Clarke’s, Kirychuk explained that the best thing to do is hang up and immediately call the RCMP. If someone says they are in jail, or at a courthouse, the RCMP can investigate that, and confirm or deny if it’s true.
He also said that you should never send money directly to someone, because if they need bail, that money will always have to be paid to the police station. If they are in jail they have no access to money until they are released, so they wouldn’t even be able to access money sent to a personal account.
“Anything that seems odd, or anything that seems too good to be true ... it’s not true; it’s a scam,” he said.
He said that in the face of the intense emotional pressure many scam artists apply, it can be difficult to keep a clear head. But if you listen to the warning bells going off in your head, you can keep from being a victim.
“Definitely if you feel something’s not right, it’s probably not right,” he said.
To help raise awareness among the town’s senior citizens, the RCMP will host a fraud presentation at the Alpine Summit Seniors Lodge on Sept. 25 at 7 p.m. Officers will explain some of the different scams that are out there, and offer tips on how to handle such a situation.
For more information, or to report a possible scam, call the Jasper RCMP or the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501.
Trevor Nichols
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