A couple received an urgent request from their 'son' for $4000 - then their biological son called
Last month, Melbourne man Sam Peluso’s wife received a message from her son telling her she had a new number after dropping her phone down the toilet.
He didn’t think much of it. His son had previously dropped the phone down the drain so this latest incident doesn’t seem out of character.
“The fact that he dropped his phone in the toilet convinced us it could be him. That’s his style,” Peluso told 7NEWS.com.au.
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There was only one problem – the person on the other end of the phone was not his son.
Almost caught
When Peluso’s wife first received the message, no one rang the alarm bell.
His ‘son’ – who texted from an Australian number – said he had dropped his phone down the toilet, and had to get a new phone and number, Peluso said.
Peluso’s ‘son’ then asked for $4095 to help pay part of the bill.
“(My wife) went back to him and asked him, ‘how do we pay this money and where do we pay it?’”
The guy on the other end gave him Bankwest’s BSB and account number.
But before she sent the money, she called her husband, who then told her to wait until he got home before he did anything.
Meanwhile, the couple also tried to contact their son, but to no avail.
“We thought it was our child. We’re not too sure,” Peluso said.
Then the red flags started to appear.
The couple asked for the name of their ‘son’ on the account.
“I said (to my wife) I told this person that the bank wanted bank details and account names,” said Peluso.
“He came back with a bank name and a girl’s name – Michelle,” Peluso said, adding the would-be scammer harassed the couple, checking to see if the funds had been sent.
While exchanging more messages with the scammer, the couple heard from their son, who told them to report the message to the police.
A few days later, they deleted the messages, thankful they didn’t get caught.
“We thought maybe someone knew him, because what surprised me was that the text came from a cell phone number,” Peluso said.
“Usually it’s a private number or something you can’t easily trace.”
“(My wife) almost believed it.”
It’s in the details
NSW mother-of-two, Janine Angel, received the same scam message on WhatsApp a few weeks ago.
Although he initially thought the message was genuine, he continued with questions to the would-be scammer.
“I answered and said ‘is this Lucy or Daniel?’ And then they said, ‘that’s Lucy’s mother’,” Angel told 7NEWS.com.au.
One small detail then gives it all.
“I just know that it’s not the right tone.
“Some things he didn’t wear there… he didn’t have a kiss there, which he always will and the way it (the message) was spoken.”
After the alarm bell rang, Angel called her daughter to check if she had sent the message and realized it was a scam.
“And that’s all. It was a very short time.”
Angel then stopped replying, reported the messages to WhatsApp and deleted them from her phone.
He shared his experience in the hope that others would be aware of the fraudulent messages circulating.
“Just to be very careful,” he said.
‘Mom and dad scam’
The scam that Pelusos nearly perpetrated became known as the “mom and dad scam” – and it’s becoming more common.
It works like this: A potential scammer will contact the victim via WhatsApp or text message, pretending to be their child.
“Hey mom, my other phone is broken. But this is my temporary phone. You can save this one. Message me if you see this,” the ‘mom and dad scam’ message might read, according to Scamwatch.
Scammers can claim their phone is lost, dropped or damaged, and they use this new number until the old one is fixed.
“Scams can ask victims for money to help pay bills or money for a new phone,” said a spokesperson for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
Since January, Scamwatch ACCC has received more than 460 reports related to “mom and dad scams”.
About a third of them reported a total financial loss of more than $2 million, an ACCC spokesperson told 7NEWS.com.au.
To protect yourself, the ACCC says people should be suspicious of messages claiming to be contacts you have a different phone number or social media profile for.
In this case of fraud, the ACCC recommends people “send a message to the real number or social media profile of the contact to confirm that they have lost their phone or changed their profile”.
“If you are unable to make contact with their real phone number or profile, verify that new communications of this kind are legitimate through a second factor, such as email if a text message comes in,” an ACCC spokesperson said.
As for Peluso and his wife, they also took steps.
They have set up a pin system with their son where they confirm each other’s identity with a code that only they know.
They also refuse to answer messages or receive calls from unknown numbers.
“We all need to take control of our own security, be careful and double-check requests for money or confidential information,” Peluso said.
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