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This 'granddad' doesn't fall for it
(by Barbara Christian - July 18, 2012)
WINDOW ON MAIN STREET, BY BARBARA CHRISTIAN
This 'granddad' doesn't fall for it
Legendary circus owner P.T. Barnum has been credited with saying, "There's a sucker born every minute." He was referring to his customers who paid to see his hoaxed-up sideshow scams.
It has been argued old P.T. was not the originator of those famous words, although the facts are hazy on who it was.
Whoever, the point is it was true then, and it is true now. The world still has its share of suckers, and there still are scam artists who are so sure of it they can take it to the bank. Regularly and literally.
There is a point to this, so hang in there while we consider two more well-worn sayings.
"There is no such thing as a free lunch" dates back to a time when bars served free lunches as a way of enticing customers to buy drinks.
Or how about, "If it's too good to be true, it isn't"? We couldn't find the originator of that one.
Unfortunately, these sayings live on, because there are still the folks who want believe what the con man has to offer, and our police departments deal with the fallout from the gullible-versus-greedy crimes all the time.
This newspaper prints these police items as cautionary tales for the gullible apt to believe in free lunches and deals too good to pass up.
Making the rounds now is one such con game. Call it "the grandchild in trouble and in need to get out of a pickle in a foreign country." The elderly are the mark, and the scam goes like this:
The unsuspecting party receives a call from a land far away. The caller, usually a male, claims to be a grandson who is in trouble after having been involved in a car accident. He is all right, but he is in jail and needs bail money. The plea for cash comes with the grandson's request that his parents not be contacted because they (a) will be worried or (b) are unaware or did not approve of his travel plans.
Frightened and concerned grandparents, often their grandchild's only confidant, send the money via Western Union -- which, by the way, should know by now it is used to transmit illegally gotten money and do something about it.
The grandparent waits and worries. Then comes a second call from the faux grandson, who says, while he is out of jail, authorities won't let him leave the country until he pays for accident damages. Send more money, please.
As outlandish as this sounds, the con works more often than you might think -- unless it is perpetrated on one 93-year-old Chagrin Falls man who saved himself from sucker status just in time.
As police reported it, he was on his way to the bank to withdraw the bail money when he remembered -- we assume while slapping heel of hand to forehead -- that he did not have a grandson.
When the grifter contacted granddad that evening asking if the "bail money" had been sent, the old gent informed him he was not his grandson, because he didn't have a grandson, knew he was almost victim of his con game and was going to call police. That is when the line went dead.
A sucker may be born every minute, but it wasn't the elderly gentleman from Chagrin Falls. For this we give him a hearty round of applause.
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