LAKE COUNTY ? An elderly Clearlake Oaks couple who thought they were helping their troubled grandson ended up losing $6,000 to a scam artist, according to a Monday Lake County Sheriff”s Office press release.
Audrey Crane, 87, and Kenneth Crane, 90, of Clearlake Oaks, received a call from a man who claimed he was the couple”s grandson. The caller said he had been arrested in Canada for driving under the influence, and asked for $3,000 for bail.
“Because he sounded ?distressed,” the Cranes apparently had no reason to believe it was not their grandson,” LCSO Captain James Bauman wrote.
The couple wired the money by way of a MoneyGram from Wal-Mart in Clearlake. The Cranes got another call from the man when they got home, this time asking for the reference number for the MoneyGram.
The same man called again the next day and asked for more money, claiming his DUI arrest resulted from a car accident and the person he hit wanted $10,000 to compensate for a neck injury. The couple wired another $3,000, and again received a follow-up call requesting the MoneyGram reference number.
After another day passed and the couple did not hear from the man claiming to be their grandson, Audrey Crane began calling to find out how he was doing. She learned her grandson had been at his home in Idaho and had not called from Canada to ask for money.
“He knew they had a grandson, and he knew the grandson”s name. With today”s technology, there is a myriad of ways to get that kind of information,” Bauman said.
The LCSO took a similar report from an elderly Clearlake Oaks man in late January. A man had called claiming he had been arrested in Canada and asking for $6,000. The Clearlake Oaks man called his daughter first and learned that his grandson was in Los Angeles, and had not been to Canada.
Bauman said the fact that both of the alleged scam artist”s targets lived in Clearlake Oaks could be a coincidence. He said no suspects have been identified.
“There isn”t nearly as much advice on preventing fraud as there are ways to be defrauded,” Bauman wrote. “However, aside from protecting one”s personal information, members of the public are encouraged to always verify unsolicited transactions of any kind before acting on them.”
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com, or call her directly at 263-5636 ext. 37.
