Plymouth police: bail scam callers ask seniors for up to $20,000, then send a driver for the cash

PLYMOUTH Plymouth police have warned families that scammers are calling older residents with a story that a relative is in jail and needs up to $20,000 in bail, then sending a driver to the senior's home to pick up the cash.

The Plymouth Police Department posted the alert on its Facebook page Thursday, Oct. 15, saying it and surrounding communities had received reports of senior residents being targeted by callers "seeking money to help a loved one get out of trouble."

Fall River police warned Friday, Nov. 6, about a similar scheme in which callers pose as police, federal investigators or bank fraud specialists, tell people their money is "bad" and send someone to collect the cash, as South Coast 360 reported. The Plymouth County District Attorney's Office and the Federal Trade Commission have both warned about the bail version of the scam for years.

How the scam works

In the calls Plymouth police described, the resident is told that a loved one is in jail and needs "significant bail money up to $20,000." A driver, sometimes posing as a ride-share driver, is then sent to the home to collect the money so the relative can be released, the department said.

The Plymouth County District Attorney's Office describes the same pattern on the scams page of its website, where it says the grandparent scam "has duped a number of our seniors into giving away large sums of their savings." According to the office, the call often comes in the middle of the night from someone posing as a grandchild who says they were just arrested, begs the grandparent not to tell their parents and asks for bail money.

District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz warned about the courier version as far back as April 2020, when his office said Rockland and other South Shore police departments had warned about callers who claimed a grandchild was arrested out of state, sometimes posed as the grandchild's lawyer and offered to send a courier to pick up the bail money.

The FTC says callers in these schemes may speak softly or offer an excuse for why they sound different, and some put a second person on the line who pretends to be a lawyer. Once the cash is handed over at the door, "your money is gone," the agency wrote, and the victim may get more calls asking for money by wire transfer or through the mail. The FTC also warns that some scammers use artificial intelligence to copy a family member's voice from a short audio clip, sometimes taken from content posted online.

What police say to do

Plymouth police said residents should never give cash or a check to anyone they do not know. "Bail money will never be collected from you at home," the department wrote. "Bail transactions only take place at a police station or courthouse."

Anyone who gets a call like this should ignore it and call their local police department, which can help check whether the story is true, police said. A call straight to the relative who is supposedly in trouble can also confirm that they are safe, the department said, and it asked residents to tell older family members and friends about the scheme.

The FTC's advice for these calls lines up with the department's and adds a few steps:

• Take a breath and resist the pressure to pay right away.
• Hang up and call or text the family member at a number you know is right, and check with another relative even if the caller told you to keep it secret.
• If you would rather stay on the line, ask a question only the real person could answer, such as what kind of dog they have.
• Do not give your address, personal information or cash to anyone who contacts you this way, and treat any request for gift cards or a money transfer as a sign of a scam.

If you already paid

A person who handed over money in one of these schemes was the victim of a crime and should file a report with local police, the FTC says, adding that the sooner someone acts, the better. Scam calls can be reported to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and the agency also tells people to report them to their state attorney general's office.

The Plymouth Police Department is at 20 Long Pond Road, and its business line is 508-830-4218, according to the department letterhead on the alert.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.