It happened to my family too

The Sofia Echo reports on three cases where phone crooks have failed in their scam, either by chance, by mistake or by people’s own reaction. These three incidents all happened in the past 18 months in Plovdiv and Varna.   

Plovdiv
A lunchtime phone call over the weekend set my mother’s mind on fire. A raucous, obscure voice informed her that my brother was in custody after killing a boy while driving. The man, who pretended to be his lawyer, claimed he was ready to arrange an under-the-counter deal with police and release him on bail if my mother acted fast. She had to deliver 5000 leva in cash to a specified location by the end of the day.

My mother never had a tinge of doubt because the man knew my brother’s name and surname and reported his exact whereabouts. She was also given a detailed report of the accident. She was in such shock that it never occurred to her to call my brother. Instead, she contacted everyone who had cash in hand because on Saturdays banks are closed. My cousin called me and I called my brother. He was at large, walking his kids around in the park… So my advice is always call the "culprit" first.

Varna 1
My husband’s mother was visiting us for a week for a few medical tests. She moves slowly with a stick and it usually takes us 10 minutes to get her from the lift to the car. She stayed at our house two nights. After that, she spent three more nights in the hospital and then on a Saturday morning my husband went to drive her home, an hour-and-a-quarter journey from Varna. An hour or so after they left Varna I answered a phone call on the land line.

A male voice told me that my husband had hit another car and that there were injured people and my mother-in-law had been taken to hospital.

The man said he was the prosecutor assigned to the case. As a result I panicked and kept asking if my husband was ok and if I could talk to him. The voice said he was OK and started offering me a way to keep my husband out of jail because he was facing 15 years behind bars. Instinctively, I dialled my husband’s mobile phone with my own mobile phone while talking to the man on the land line. The moment I heard my husband’s voice I hung up the land line. My husband told me they had just arrived and that they had had a nice trip.

If, for example, I could not reach him on the cell (he might have been out of range or on silent mode) I don’t know what I could have done and if I would have been fooled too. I guess they must have watched my mother-in-law coming to the hospital with the help of my husband and decided to try their luck because it was obvious that she is out of town and had to be brought back at some point. Getting our names from the post box or our land line is not a problem.   

Varna 2
One day the phone rang and a voice told me that my son-in-law had been involved in a terrible car accident and that he urgently needed money to pay police so that he would not face charges. I have only one son-in-law and his name is Ivan, whereas the voice used the name Georgi. When I started asking for more details the phone call ended.