We Need International Reverse Phone Lookup!

Perpetrators of senior fraud have recently been rampaging across the country, ripping off innocent grandparents who have yet to catch on to the ways of contemporary scammers. But now that reverse phone lookups can help with catching the criminals by determining where they are calling from, the plot thickens. The calls are starting to come from across the border, where our call-tracing ability is still pretty limited.

An elderly couple in Gloucester, MA nearly became yet another casualty of just such malicious attack. They received a call from a man claiming to be a Canadian police officer, who informed them that their grandson got in trouble in Canada and is currently in jail. He told them that to be released their grandson needed to post bail in the amount of $3,800, and suggested they wire the money from the local Wal-Mart.

Of course, the concerned grandparents rushed to Wal-Mart to wire the money. Luckily, they weren't the first in the Cape Ann/North Shore area to be taken by the same ploy. The clerk showed them a memo that warned local senior citizens about that exact scam. Apparently, one unfortunate local elderly couple had already fallen victim to the same strategy. Even the amount of money they were asked to wire was the same, $3,800.

The unidentified suspects knew the senior citizens' home and cell phone numbers, yet information on the number they called from was not available through a reverse phone lookup. Clearly, the crooks have figured out that tracing their calls becomes nearly impossible, once they drive across the border. The couple notified the local police, but while the incidents are under investigation, they would like to alert all other senior citizens to the possibility of similar attacks.