His son ‘has been kidnapped.’ How this elderly Delaware man was swayed by an ‘impostor scam’
A "sharp cookie" and a brilliant teacher, say friends and family, Halprin was swayed by a flimflam aimed at the elderly, known as the "impostor scam."
One morning last month, he got a horrific call from a strange number. It was a man who claimed he'd kidnapped Halprin's adult son, who resides on the Main Line. The man said he was holding Halprin's son at gunpoint and was demanding
"Dad, please help me!" was the first thing Halprin heard.
"I've never been taken [in] by any computer or other scams like the Microsoft or the
"Then someone else got on the phone, asked me, 'Is there anyone else around you?' I said 'no.'"
In truth, his companion,
For the next hour, the caller kept Halprin on the line. "I wrote down on a piece of paper that 'criminals have Dan,' and gave it to her. I left the house in my slippers still and got in the car" to drive to the bank.
From her telling,
"I was there when the phone call came in. We'd had breakfast and I heard Arthur talking loudly. He's normally very soft-spoken, but he'd been concerned about the stock market, so I thought perhaps he was talking to his broker about Tesla's stock price."
Halprin handed her a crumpled piece of paper.
"I knew it was a scam," she recalled. "I'd heard about the 'grandparent scam,' when con artists pretend to be someone's grandchild and call up asking for bail money. But his son is 47 years old! I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't get Arthur to listen. It was his son's life at stake. And they wouldn't let him put down the phone -- that's part of the con."
Halprin's son works for a nonprofit in
"I insisted he call me back on Facetime to prove he wasn't under duress. Then I called the police," she said.
Halprin, meanwhile, drove to the bank and withdrew
Sarsfield couldn't get Halprin on the line, but she asked the
Halprin, indeed, made it to the
Halprin was minutes away from wiring
"This was one where potentially someone's life was on the line. It wasn't the threat of jail or taxes. It was my son's life. There was just -- I couldn't risk it. Whatever suspicion I had, I had to bury, I couldn't be sure. They knew my son's name. They figured out who my kids are. It was a very close call."
Financial advisers such as
About 550,000 people who gave their age reported fraud to the
To prevent such crimes, Roccato advises friends and family members to make sure the elderly person in your life "isn't on his own or her own all day every day. Even just a phone call, a text, a visit is important so that person feels a connection is still there."
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