A New Canaan woman was scammed out of $175,000 after being informed, falsely, that her granddaughter was in custody in California following a serious car accident which resulted in the injury of a child.
The 87-year-old woman fell victim to the "grandparent scam" on Sept. 6 and reported the incident to police on Sept. 12.
According to police, a man pretending to be the lawyer representing her granddaughter told the elderly woman she needed to wire him bond money to secure her granddaughter's release from jail. The victim told police she also heard a woman "who was crying hysterically" and then got on the phone, asking for help. The woman eventually ended up wiring $75,000 to California.
The woman then received another phone call on Sept. 7, where the man pretending to be the lawyer informed her that the child in the accident died and she needed to wire an additional $100,000 because her granddaughter's bond had increased. The woman wired that amount too, police said.
Following the second wire transfer, a bank employee informed the woman that it sounded like she was being scammed. The woman then called her granddaughter, who informed her that she had not been arrested and wasn't in an accident either.
The case remains under investigation.
