Odd calls to traveling family members.
Has anyone rec'd a strange phone call from this man when travelling out of the country? This man called my mother late at night and really scared her in regard to my brother traveling outside the country. We are trying to find out what is going on. He would not give her any information.
Thank you
Reply to this Hello Nicole 😊
I removed the persons name from the title of your thread.
Would you tell us a little more about what the phone call is about, so if members have experieced such a call they can post here.
Does your mother know what phone number the call came from? She could report it to the police and also ask the phone company if they can confirm that the call came from a phone in the name of who the person says he is.
My guess is that this is a crank call, from somebody who knows your family. I think most things like that are just crank calls, so try not to worry too much about it, unless something else happens besides phone calls. And ask your mother to try to sound bored, when he calls again, or else not pick up the phone at all. I would give crank callers as little reaction as possible.
One thing to consider too, is that you are posting this here under your real name(I presume). All a person wanting to scare your family needs to do to find out they are succeeding is to Google your names.
Mel
Reply to this Thank you. That makes good sense. The odd thing is that the same person left a msg. on my cousin's answering machine while he was traveling recently in Italy. He has a different last name and lives in another state.
Reply to this That only means, it is somebody who knows your family well. It could be a neighbour, an ex friend, a work colleague... Some people are just very weird, but not necessarily dangerous. I think, if this person really intended to do any of your family members harm, he would just go ahead and do it, instead of spending time harassing members of your family with phone calls.
I would keep copies of all messages this person leaves on your answering machines. Listen to them now and again, and you might start to remember whose voice it is.
Reply to this My mum had a "homelink" number.This means my sister or I could call from anywhere in Australia and it is billed to her phone at normal rates.It is a lot cheaper than reverse charges and has a special code that only my sis and I knew.
Anyway mum started recieving calls from a man and woman using this number.They started out quite calmly telling her to ask her child to pay what they owe.Of course mum thought it had something to do with me but I had no idea what it was about.After a couple of months the calls had gotten very scary for my mum ,with these people leaving messages on the machine with detailed descriptions of what how they where going to kill her "child" ,never son or daughter.It took the police a while but ,around 3months after the 1st call, they traced the call and arrested a couple on the other side of Australia.It turns out this was totally random.These people had sat around trying number after number until they fluked my mums "homelink" and thought it was funny to scare a middle aged lady ,who just happened to have 2 travelaholic children.
Some people are just idiots with a wierd sense of fun so ,as Mel said, tell your mum not to react.If she acts bored hopefully the "idiot" will also get bored.
Reply to this Hello Nicole.
Being in law enforcement, I am very familiar with this particular phone scam.
The callers have usually gathered family info from obituaries or family announcements in the newspapers or they have called randomly a few weeks prior and ask for a grandson named 'jamie'. The older person might say 'no my grandson's name is tommy' and then they have their info.
The scammers will usually prey on older people. They will call and state they are a friend of this family member, and advise that this person has been jailed or perhaps was drunk and caused an auto accident in a foreign country, and is in serious trouble. They then tell the victim they need to send money to help right away, and that this family member was too embarrassed to ask any other family member for help. They are very convincing and will talk for how ever long it takes.
It's horrible to go after the most vulnerable in our society. Sad really.
Again, this just adds to the importance of registering with consulates when travelling internationally. Family members would receive official notice should one of their family members get into trouble abroad.
I hope this helps.
Reply to this Cabochick, that was very enlightening. I am surprised that this kind of information is not available elsewhere, this is the first time that I've heard of this.
Mell: Some people are just weird, but if you think about it, these weirdos are also the most dangerous. What's more, them knowing my family and where I live or they live just rings alarm bells in my head!
Reply to this Wow that can be a little unnerving!
I'm glad to hear that everything is resolved peacefully and you and your family are alright.
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