Near-victims of ‘grandparent scam’ thwart criminal operation with police sting

An ongoing phone scam that swindled about $100,000 from victims was thwarted by an elderly Saskatoon couple.

Saskatoon police reported last week that three men from Quebec, two aged 25 and one 26, had been arrested in Saskatoon for allegedly being behind the reported “grandparent scam” that’s been making the rounds in recent months.

Those arrests are thanks to Larry and Helen, a couple in their 80s who live in Saskatoon. 650 CKOM has agreed to not publish the family’s last names due to safety concerns.

The couple say their wild experience started when they received a call on the morning of Jan. 10.

“The first thing (I) hear is, ‘Grandpa, I’m in a bit of trouble and I need your help,’ ” Larry shared.

The caller, posing as a grandson of Larry and Helen, launched into an elaborate story explaining he had contracted COVID-19 and was on his way home from picking up some medications when he rear-ended a woman who was pregnant with twins.

Larry said he began to engage with the caller, finding out his “grandson” was allegedly in jail and using his one phone call to reach out to his grandparents for help. He told them he was facing two charges as a result of the crash — partly because he had revealed to police that he’d been holding his cellphone at the time of the collision.

“All the time, I’m trying to figure out … which grandson it is,” Larry said. “We’ve got three of them. It doesn’t sound quite like any of them.”

At that point, Larry asked if the caller was one of their grandsons by name. The caller said yes.

To get released, the caller told Larry and Helen he needed $9,000 to pay his bail right away.

The caller also told Larry, and later Helen, that he was really congested from his illness, so the pair might have a hard time understanding him and maybe wouldn’t recognize his voice. However, he reiterated how much help he needed for the situation he was in.

Shocked, frustrated and emotional, Larry suggested his “grandson” call his father — their son Ian. But the “grandson” said this was his only phone call and he was worried about how his dad would react.

After a few more questions, the “grandson” asked Larry if he’d like to speak to his public defender, who’d been very sympathetic to the situation.

The supposed lawyer said the two charges facing the couple’s “grandson” were serious and more could be on the way depending on the condition of the woman in the crash.

“I’d heard of these scams before and I was always smugly confident that I’d never get sucked in,” Larry said. “At this point, I was just overwhelmed with the story he’d told me.”

He handed the phone off to Helen, who was a bit annoyed to have a phone conversation she was having with a friend interrupted. She listened to the same story from the person still claiming to be the lawyer helping their “grandson.”

Helen asked to speak with their “grandson” again and was told she couldn’t because he was being checked over by a nurse. She asked the caller more questions and even told him she didn’t trust him. He agreed with her that there have been a lot of scam calls recently, but assured her that this wasn’t one of them.

“He kept asking me, ‘Can you do it? Can you do it?’ ” Helen recalled. “And I said to him, ‘Well, we’ll try.’ ”

Helen told the caller she was very upset about the situation but they hung up and she and Larry got ready to go to the bank.

But they were heading down the hallway towards the elevator in their condo building when Larry said his “brain kicked in,” thinking the caller really hadn’t sounded much like their grandson and about how strange this bail payment arrangement seemed.

So the pair decided to go back to their suite and figure things out.

In short order, the pair looked into the questions they had — including calling their grandson for themselves.

Helen told her grandson she could “hug him a thousand times” when he picked up and told her he was at home with his child.

Then the couple decided to call the Saskatoon Police Service, which initially told them to stay away from their phones to distance themselves from the scam callers. About half an hour later, Larry got a call back from a sergeant with the police service who said officers will work with the couple to try and capture the people behind the calls.

The next several hours were spent stringing along the alleged scammers through a series of phone calls. Using excuses like doctor’s appointments and bank delays, the couple led the person on the other end of the phone to believe they were working to get the money in order by late afternoon.

Helen took over the calls during the afternoon — after Larry felt he’d made a few mistakes in his own calls with the alleged scammers — and continued to speak with the callers for about five total conversations throughout the day.

She said the person on the other end of the line continued to ask more and more questions as the day wore on.

Police finally started to arrive at the couple’s condo around 3:30 p.m. and helped Helen navigate her conversations with the callers on the line, taking down the information she relayed aloud and providing her with answers to some of their questions — like a fake birth date.

They almost told the callers the money they took out was in $1,000 bills instead of $100 bills. There were also a lot of details relayed to them about how to package the money (in a manila envelope) and specifics on how to label it.

“It’s a very nerve-wracking thing,” said Ian, who went over to his parents’ home to be with them throughout the ordeal.

The money exchange was supposed to happen at around 4 p.m. but didn’t take place until after 5 p.m. During that time, police had Helen reach out to the callers herself, telling them she was too distressed about her “grandson” to wait any longer to pay them and inquiring how quickly they could expect the bail bondsman to arrive.

At least five officers were around when the eventual capture took place outside the couple’s condo building, including a female officer pretending to be Helen and delivering the payment. A few unmarked police vehicles and two canine units were also around to assist in case reinforcements were needed.

The suspect who showed up tried to flee when he realized his date had been set with police instead of an unsuspecting elderly duo, but was quickly taken down by officers.

Two days later, the man’s two alleged accomplices were caught.

“It’s crazy. This is in Saskatoon and it’s like $100,000 from Saskatoon grandparents who are doing it because they love their grandchildren,” Ian told Gormley on Monday morning.

“I’m proud of my parents. The bravery they showed to do it … I don’t know if I could have done it.”

Ian and his parents applauded the efforts of the police officers involved, commending their efforts and expertise that led to the capture of the alleged scammers.

“The police just deserve oodles of credit,” Helen said. “There’s no guarantee that what we were saying was going to work, but it did.”

Normally, Larry said he would’ve quickly shut down a scam caller or called to tell them off. But having not paid any money yet and still having an open line of communication with the caller meant there was an opportunity for police to work with them for the arrests to happen.

“I’m glad we came to our senses,” Larry said. “I felt embarrassed and kind of angry at myself and angry at them for getting taken in like that.”

The couple is grateful that they played a role in ending this particular scheme.