"Grandma, I'm in Jail"

The phone rings at some ungodly hour.

"Grandma, this is your grandson. I'm in jail and they won't let me out until I post $*** in bail. Can you please help me?"

There's one HUGE problem with this scenario. It's not your grandson. (Or nephew, or niece, or cousin, or friend's kid.)

My parents' friend got one of these calls just the other night. She's a smart cookie and still sharp despite her 80+ years.

What did she do? She let him talk and talk, made conversation and asked him about his wife. Oh, wait. Her grandson DOESN'T HAVE A WIFE!

So she told him she'd see what she could do, got a return phone number to call him back, etc.

The cops weren't even interested in the case. Now that is sad. The woman got info that just might lead to the scammer and the local yokels weren't interested.

Talk about some serious BULL DROPPINGS!

It's up to us to protect ourselves. Make sure your family and friends know that:

1. When people call from jail, it's a collect call AND the machine will tell you that it's coming from a jail before it asks you about accepting the call. So if someone is "calling from jail" and it's not collect and there's not a warning, it's fake!
2. Know the whereabouts of your family members. Don't just take it at face value that the brat doesn't want Mom and Dad to know that he/she is in trouble. Call them up and ASK them. It's quite likely that your grandchild is safe at home in bed.
3. Call the jail directly and ask if a person by that name is there. Trust me, they'll tell you.
4. Just because a person is elderly, it doesn't mean that they're stupid. Scams have been going on for many a long year and a lot of our elderly family members have seen way more snake-oil schemes than we realize.
5. Never, ever, ever give out a credit card number, bank information or send money via Western Union to anyone -- even a family member, without verifying the facts. And I don't mean going to the website provided by the scammer. Check by calling directly or going online to the website without using the scammer's "conveniently provided" links.

The jail scam has been going on for years. In my younger years, I even had a guy try to scam money out of me, probably for drugs, by claiming he was in jail and his cousin would come by to pick up cash.

Puleeze, the BULL DROPPINGS were so deep that I could smell them over the phone. Why?

1. He didn't call collect.
2. His "cousin" could pick up the cash. (Really?)
3. I called the jail and they said there was no one there by that name. (HUH, I thought so!)

Mama is no fool and you shouldn't be either. Don't fall for the BULL DROPPINGS!!

Warn Your Family About Check Fraud!

Please do yourself and your family a huge favor and talk to them about the latest check scams going around.

Here's the deal.

Generally, a person is asked to deposit a check into his/her bank account. (Sometimes it's a money order.) The check will be made out to him/her, printed on check stock, it actually looks pretty good.

The victim is to deposit the check, usually through the ATM, and in a few days withdraw the money and give the money to the scammer. The scammer will convince him/her that it's really a good check, that they're hiding money from their ex/the IRS/creditors, or some other BS, so it's all good, no risk at all to the victim.

Yup, it's BS.

The person who deposits the check WILL be charged with a variety of FELONIES!! Even though he/she is a victim of the scammer. No one will believe that he/she is so foolish as to deposit a check and not know that it's fake. District Attorneys are a-holes and will not believe the victim, period!

People are truly naive about the dishonesty of others.

The scammer will throw him/her under the prison bus without a single thought of the long lasting consequences to the victim. Bluntly, no matter how nice, how honest, how caring they seem to be, they're just thieves in the temple and WILL NOT care what happens when they get the stolen money in their hot little hands.

So, talk to your family, your friends, your loved ones and make sure that they know to turn that other cheek and RUN like the wind if anyone approaches them with the idea of depositing checks or money orders into their bank accounts.

It will be bad, very bad, if they get sucked into the scammer's lies.

Trust me.

Please. Just trust me on this one. For your family's sake.