One day, a con artist called Jean and attempted to con her out of $8,000 over the phone. He quickly realized he had messed with the wrong grandmother.
Nowadays, most scammers utilize the internet to locate and seduce potential victims, but others still rely on more traditional methods to obtain their goal—money.
Fraudsters call elderly people on the phone pretending to be their child or grandchild, their primary target. Typically, they claim to have been in accidents and demand large sums of money to pay for a lawyer or a doctor.
Older folks appear to be more vulnerable because they are less likely to be wary and because they would sacrifice anything for their family.
According to Suzanne Turner of the FBI San Diego, “our seniors are typically very trusting, kind, and not likely to say no; and these are exactly the attributes these criminal organizations are seeking for.”
Jean Ebbert, 73, is one of the seniors that con artists have been phishing for a very long time. Ebbert is a grandma, a retired 911 dispatcher, a mother, and a crossword puzzle enthusiast.
She has received multiple calls from scammers in the past, but each time, she hung up. She made the decision to play along this time to see what would happen.
On January 20, she got a tearful call from a man. She initially believed it to be her “huge joker” son-in-law, but she soon understood it was a scammer’s job.
She made an effort to maintain her composure and hide any signs of suspicion.
“Oh my god, don’t call your mother—she’ll be furious, I warned him. I’ll take care of this. They therefore believed that I was duped, she explained.
The con artists said that her grandson had been in a drunk driving accident and demanded $8,000 in cash to cover his bail.
To make the whole thing appear more credible, they even gave her a phone number, a “case number,” and a bogus attorney’s name.
They finally agreed to meet at her residence so she could hand the “bail bondsman” an envelope with the required sum of cash.
Ebbert texted her son in the interim, and she also made a call to the neighborhood police to make sure everything would go according to plan.
In fact, two police officers showed up at her house and waited for the con artist. Soon later, a man knocked on her door. She met him on her front yard and gave him the envelope, which was empty save for some paper towels.
Did she feel fear? Yes, but she nevertheless carried out the plan.
“What if he has a gun? I wondered. She recalled, “What if the police had to shoot him? “All of this goes through your mind. I’m concerned.
Though everything went smoothly. The two officers charged at the suspect as soon as he got the envelope in his hands and tackled him.
The individual was detained and charged with third-degree attempted grand larceny after being later identified as Joshua Estrella Gomez of Mineola. He will shortly make an appearance in court.
What sweet revenge that is!
Watch the video below to see the cool grandma discuss how she defeated the “bad man.”
