Two Austintown seniors lose thousands in grandkid in jail scam

AUSTINTOWN

Two senior citizens were scammed out of thousands of dollars after a caller claimed their granddaughter was in jail.

According to police reports, both incidents happened on Monday and were reported to township police on Tuesday.

The first incident involved an 80-year old female township resident who received a call from someone claiming to be an officer from Penfield, west of Medina. They claimed the woman’s granddaughter was in trouble and a $3,000 bond was needed to get her out of trouble. She was instructed to go to a local Rite Aid and load $3,000 on MoneyPak prepaid cards. With tax, the woman lost $3,029.70.

Once the woman began asking questions after giving the information related to the MoneyPak cards, she was hung up on and called her daughter and granddaughter and realized it was a scam.

The second incident involved an 85-year old township man. He told police he was called 10 a.m. Monday by someone claiming to be a police officer from Tucson, Ariz. That person said his granddaughter’s bail was $4,000 and he could place it over the phone by MoneyPak cards.

He gave the person the numbers associated with the cards loaded with $4,000 on Monday. After talking with family Tuesday, he realized he had been scammed.

Austintown detectives are investigating the cases.