Warning after elderly woman targeted in terrifying gift card scam

“Don’t talk to anybody. Put me in your handbag. Don’t say anything.”

These were the instructions 91-year-old Grace* was given by the man on the phone.

The call, which had come out of the blue one afternoon in September, set off a chain of events lasting less than an hour but which continue to haunt Grace nearly two months later.

The Perth widow is usually reluctant to answer unknown numbers. However, her scepticism was quickly dispelled that day by the knowledge the caller had about her personal circumstances.

“He gave my full name. He gave my address. He told me I was a widow, where I lived, what house I lived in,” she said.

That was enough for Grace to accept he was from her bank, and barely question what came next.

Anonymised overhead shot of an older woman sitting at a table examining bank statements
Grace was almost scammed after fraudsters pretending to be her bank called her and persuaded her to buy gift cards from a nearby supermarket.  (ABC News: Garrett Mundy )

“He said, ‘You’re our last closest contact to catching these scammers, and what you’re going to do for us will help put them in jail,'” she told the ABC.

Gift card request

She was told to go to a local supermarket and buy $2000 worth of Apple gift cards.

When Grace told the caller her car was being used by her son, he had an immediate solution ready to go.

“He said, ‘We’re going to send a taxi. It’s on its way,'” Grace said.

A man looks at gift cards on a wall at a supermarket
Grace was asked to go to a supermarket to buy gift cards.  (ABC Radio Sydney: Rosemary Bolger)

Minutes after answering the phone, the usually guarded nonagenarian left her unlocked home, climbed into an unmarked car and headed to her local shopping centre in Perth’s north.

Even now she finds it hard to believe.

“I walked out to the taxi and I got in it like a fool,” Grace said.

The caller spoke to the driver of the car and instructed him to drop Grace off, while Grace was told to buy the gift cards and return to the taxi where she would be given further instructions.

It was not until she reached the Aldi check-out and tried to pay for the cards that she realised what was happening.

Wanneroo shopping centre
It was the quick thinking of a check-out operator at this suburban shopping centre that stopped Grace from being scammed.

“The young lad said to me, ‘You’ve been scammed,’ and he threw the gift cards off to the side,” she said.

“I felt like fainting, to be honest. I felt so stupid. I felt gullible. But [the scammers] are such experts in what they do.

“When you think about it, I could have ended up six foot under somewhere. I do worry that I was so stupid.”

Stranded at shopping centre

As Grace left the Aldi store, the scammer expressed his frustrations with her failure.

“The voice from my bag said, ‘I told you not to speak to anybody, and you did’.”

That was the last Grace heard from the scammers before her phone battery died.

The car that had brought her to the complex had also left, leaving her stranded at the shopping centre with no means to contact her family.

Fortunately she was spotted by some neighbours who helped her home, where her worried family was waiting.

“I didn’t know what to do. I was so upset, not only with what I’d done, but because I’d upset my family as well,” she said.

Bank ‘helpful’

The family contacted the Commonwealth Bank immediately after the event and made arrangements to secure Grace’s accounts.

They said local representatives were extremely helpful in reassuring her of her security, but suggested she had not been the only recent victim of the scam.

“What I can’t get over is how he knew my address, how he knew my phone number, how he knew my husband had passed,” Grace said.

“My age, my birthday and everything like that. I just beg people to be very, very careful when they answer the phone.”

An elderly woman shot from behind while leaning on a dining table.
Grace almost fell victim to the gift card scam. (ABC News: Garrett Mundy)

The ABC has contacted the bank to ask how scammers may have obtained Grace’s personal information, and how the bank addressed the case.

Grace’s daughter-in-law said she tried to contact local police but was left on hold for more than half an hour before eventually giving up.

She said the family was unsure how else to report the incident, but wanted to help others from falling victim to similar schemes.

“I won’t let it beat me, but if I can help anybody else by what my story tells you, I hope you really listen,” Grace said.

“I’m still shaken by it. I still have a cry over it, to think I was so stupid.”

‘Absolute mongrels’

WA’s Consumer Protection Commissioner Trish Blake was blunt in her assessment of the scammers.

“They are absolute mongrels,” she said.

“There is no other word to describe taking advantage of a 91-year-old woman.

A moody photo of Trisha Blake standing with a serious expression in an office.
Trish Blake labelled the scammers “mongrels”. (ABC News: Cason Ho)

“The iTunes gift cards and those gift card scams kind of fell out of favour but we’re definitely seeing a resurgence of them this year.

“If they are calling you out of the blue and telling you that they need you to help them catch another scammer, hang up the phone. 

“The only people who will ask you to catch a scammer is a scammer.”

*name has been changed

© 2020 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved.
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1 COMMENT

  1. I’m sorry for this lady, but these scams having been going on for over a decade and everyone has been warned about this. You just need to tell them you will go and speak to your local branch as you don’t deal with people over the phone – goodbye, hang up phone. Unfortunately, you have to question if what you are being told is the truth, so don’t believe anything until you have the information from offical sources.

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