Phone scammers are preying on older people in our community--trying to steal their money.
It's called the grandparent scam.
Merrill Police are getting multiple calls a week from people who were targeted.
Investigators say the scam is simple, a con artist calls you.
They say a family member--- usually a grandchild-- is in jail in a foreign country and they need money right away.
Last week 81 year old Katherine Westfall of Merrill almost sent $885 to a scam artist in London.
She says the caller said her grand daughter was in jail in Canada.
He even let her talk to someone posing as her grand daughter.
She says she didn't suspect that it wasn't really her.
"When I talked to her the whole while I never would have thought that [it wasn't her]. It was just how she talked too."
Westfall went to wire the money at Check -N- Go but luckily a Manager stopped her and detected it was a scam.
Westfall then called her grand daughter and confirmed it was not really her on the phone.
Police say con artists often use the Internet to get all the information they need for schemes like the Grandparent Scam.
"This one the info could have been easily obtained from a facebook or myspace page. People put where they live and who their relatives are on their facebook page," says Investigative Lt. Michael Hamann.
He says they are working with the Canadian authorities to find out who the mystery caller was.
He says never send money to people you don't know and if this happens to you contact the police immediately.
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