The Joey Scam

My 90-year-old mother called around 10 this morning. She was a bit sheepish. “Are you busy today?” she asked, her usual prelude to a request for help from me. I said that I was planning to stop by at 3 p.m. to do a few things for her. She said that it needed to be sooner.

“What is it?” I asked.

She said that something had happened to someone in the family. Who was it? I asked. She said that she couldn’t tell me. “Then, why are you calling me about it?” I said. The details filtered out. Joey, her grandson and my nephew, had called. He had hit someone. She was confused about the details. He needed her to send him some money right away.

Well, of course, I told Mom that this was a notorious scam, though she didn’t sound convinced. She did say that his voice didn’t quite sound like Joey’s, but he told her he had a cold. I told her I was going to call Joey right away to make sure it wasn’t him.

I texted Joey and his wife Cheryl: “Hi, guys, Grandma has gotten a phone call from somebody saying he was Joey and that he needed her to send him money because he’d hit somebody. He didn’t want her to tell anybody in the family. I don’t believe a word of it. Would one of you call me back right away? Grandma is very distressed.”

Cheryl quickly called me back. Joey was fine.

I called Mom and told her. She was wondering if maybe Cheryl didn’t know about the accident, that Joey hadn’t told her.

So, I called Cheryl back and asked her to have Joey phone Mom from work.

I was going to leave it at that and go see Mom in the afternoon, but my husband insisted that I go over to Mom’s apartment.

I am forced to admit that he was right and I was wrong.

By the time I got over to Mom’s, the real Joey had called Mom and reassured her. Then the phone rang.

I answered it.

Me: “Hello.”

Him: “Hello.”

Me: “Who is this?”

Him: “It’s me. I --- (I can’t remember what he said. “I need some money”? He was pretty vague.)

Me, in my best imitation of sincere concern: “Joey, It’s Aunt Sue. What happened?”

Him (I could sense the change in him. Perhaps I would be another target for his con): “I hit somebody. [pause] It’s a long story.” He sounded like a young, dejected American man. His voice might possibly have been close to Joey’s.

Me (changing my tone): “Listen, young man. We’re on to you. Don’t you ever call my mother again. Shame on you.” Then I hung up.

I’m not delusional enough to think that anything I said will have any influence on his behavior in the future, but, doggone it, there ought to be a little social censure in the world.

I emphasized to Mom that she must never give out any information over the phone. She nodded in agreement. She said that she couldn’t send the money without my help because she can’t drive. A part of her still wanted to believe him. She wondered if maybe he had been forced to call her because he had no job and was hungry. I said, crisply, that he was a criminal who stole from old people.

I called our local police department. They told us that these people make phone calls over the internet so the phone number that displays doesn’t lead anywhere. It’s pretty hard to apprehend them. The important thing is to never give out information over the phone.

On the way home, a sudden, and unwelcome, thought came to me. Among the people I need to pray for is that young man. Not for success in his career of frightening and stealing from frail elderly people, of course. This was one of those moments when it’s hard to be a Catholic. Somehow over the years, that man has lost his way. God wants me to love him and pray for him, just as I love and pray for my mother. I will never know in what way the Holy Spirit may be working within him at this very moment. I just need to do my part.