BBB Blog

Grandparents in southwest Idaho lose thousands of dollars in scam.

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 Question:  My mother in law got a call from my nephew who is in the Army in Germany.  He was calling her from Canada where he said he'd been arrested and needed money for bail.  My mother in law immediately got the information and wired $11,000 to Canada.  It turns out though that my nephew isn't really in Canada and we're afraid that she's been scammed.  What do we do?

Answer:  The BBB is warning senior citizens to be aware of an emerging telephone scam that is preying on grandparents nationwide. BBB has recently received reports about grandparents from California to New Hampshire who thought they were aiding their grandchildren by providing money for an emergency situation but were in fact giving thousands of dollars to Canadian con artists.

Generally, the scam works like this – the grandparent receives a distressed phone call from who they believe is their grandchild. The supposed grandchild typically explains that they are travelling in Canada and have been arrested or involved in an auto accident and need the grandparent to wire money to post bail or pay for damages­usually amounting to a few thousand dollars. While many seniors have reported the scam without falling prey to it, unfortunately, many others have been victimized. One well-meaning grandmother sent $15,000 to scammers, thinking she was helping a grandchild who had been in an auto accident.

This scam is just despicable because it preys on the emotions of seniors who want nothing more than to ensure the safety of their grandchildren. The key to avoiding this scam is to remain calm despite the ‘emergency’ nature of the call and to verify the identity of the caller. Too often people are allowing themselves to get caught up in the false sense of urgency and they end up making emotional, instead of logical, decisions. 

Given the sudden pervasiveness of the scam, several state Attorneys General have issued warnings. In addition, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Call Centre is reporting a significant increase in complaints for this scam. 

Law enforcement officials are not certain how perpetrators are obtaining phone numbers for so many senior citizens across the U.S. However, it is believed that scammers are most likely calling random numbers until they happen to reach a senior citizen. The scammers’ basic tactic is to pose as a grandchild and let the unsuspecting grandparent fill in the blanks. For example, the scam caller might say, “It’s me, your favorite grandchild,” to which the grandparent will guess the name of the grandchild it sounds the most like, and then the call proceeds from there. 

To protect themselves from this scam, and other scams that may use a distressed loved-one tactic, BBB is advising seniors to confirm the status of the individual by calling them directly or verifying the story with other family members before taking any further action. 

BBB also advises that any request to wire money through Western Union or MoneyGram should be seen as a “red flag” and an immediate tip-off that the call may be part of a scam. Funds sent via wire transfer are hard to track once received by scammers and are usually not recoverable by law enforcement or banking officials. 

For anyone victimized by this type of distressed loved-one call, BBB recommends reporting the incident immediately to local police departments and state Attorneys General offices. If there is a request to wire money to Canada, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Call Centre has established the PhoneBusters hotline and Web site to report such fraud. Reports can be filed easily online through the PhoneBusters site at: www.phonebusters.com, or by phone, toll free at, 1-888-495-8501.

I’ve been working to quantify the value of trust for a business. Think of it this way: If a business invests time, energy and resources into building trust with its customers, what’s the return on that investment?

We’re getting plenty of evidence that a lack of trust costs all of us dearly.

For instance, a recent TIME article references the Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index. The quarterly survey measures Americans' confidence in banks. The scale runs 1 to 5, where 1 means no trust and 5 absolute confidence. In one quarter, all financial institutions fell from 2.95 to 2.8 in the first quarter of this year. Trust in bankers went from 2.6 to 2.5. I was never a whiz at math, so correct me if I’m wrong. On a scale of one to five, 2.5 falls right in the middle, which is 50%. When I was in school, a 50% grade was an F.

I can hear someone saying, “Yeah, but if it’s an approval rating – it’s a lot better than most politicians.” Thanks for making my point. The level of trust – across the board – is dismal. In fact, it’s worse than dismal. The lack of trust is a crisis.

According to the Edelman Trust Index, trust in business in the United States dropped from 58% to 38% since 2008. That’s the lowest level of trust recorded by the survey since it started ten years ago.

However, the Edelman folks give us a glimpse of the trust ROI. They looked at 20 major economic countries around the globe and found 91% of respondents say they have specifically purchased a product or service from an organization they trusted. More significantly, 77% have refused to buy a product or service from an organization they distrust in the last year.

The answer is simple. We must move from a crisis of trust to a trust renaissance. The work is going to be much harder.

Just like keeping customers is less expensive than finding new customers, regaining lost trust is much harder than keeping it.

For business, that hard work means creating a culture of trust based on honesty, integrity and responsiveness.

I’ll be talking about the specifics of building trust to build ROI at 7:30 a.m., Tuesday, May 19, at The Business Breakfast hosted by KBOI and the Northwest Nazarene University School of Business. RSVP by May 17, to krlubiens@nnu.edu.

The Better Business Bureau Serving Southwest Idaho and Eastern Oregon is launching a new product - the BBB Online Auction - just in time for Christmas. 
If you’re looking for some unique Christmas gifts, need some home improvement or want to improve your business, there’s an item to catch your attention.
Go online now for the first ever BBB Online Auction.
http://idaho.bbbonlinemall.com

The Better Business Bureau and Boise Online Mall bring you a fun, unique way to find great products while supporting a trustworthy, ethical marketplace.
What’s up for bid?
Affordable Rain Gutters - Gutter clean-out
DaVine Air – Air duct cleaning
Price Associates - Talent assessment and debriefing
A-1 Plumbing - Plumbing tune-up
Bowman Windows & Doors – Discounted window purchase
CHF – Framed art
Timson Studios - $50 certif toward family portrait
Dave Adams Windshields - $100 off windshield
Terminix - $100 towards annual service agreement
Framing by Design - $100 certif towards a framing
Framing by Design - candle gift pack
Deb Williams Insurance - $50 gift card to Starbucks
Juice Plus - 2 cans meal replacement powder
T-zers Shirt Shop - 5 cotton baseball hats
Signs By Tomorrow -Full color digitally printed custom vinyl
Guardian College LLC – CPR & Health Care Provider training courses
Murphy Business & Financial Corp. - $250 towards a business valuation

All proceeds support the Better Business Bureau in its mission to create an ethical marketplace.

Profiting from trust? It almost sounds sacrilegious. However, let’s take a look at the ROI of building trust with your customers. There is definitely a cost-benefit relationship.

Your Better Business Bureau is here to point customers in the direction of trustworthy companies because we believe an ethical marketplace creates a win-win opportunity. Business owners enjoy the benefits of building customer loyalty and a reputation for being unique in their respective industry. Customers shopping for products and services see the BBB Seal of Trust and buy with confidence, knowing they are getting quality and value from a responsive company.

Stephen M.R. Covey lays out the ROI proposition very well in his book The Speed of Trust. Covey writes: “Trust always affects two outcomes – speed and cost. When trust goes down, speed will also go down and costs will go up. When trust goes up, speed will also go up and costs will go down.”

Using the trust=speed=lower cost equation, look at your business. In those areas where trust has been breached, whether with employees or customers, consider the additional costs and loss of efficiency. Added paperwork, equipment and investment of time managing the lack of trust have real costs and pull you away from the big picture of innovation and identifying new ways to grow your business.

On the flip side, when you trust your employees, vendors and customers, you dramatically increase the speed and effectiveness of interactions, find new efficiencies and as a result, drive down costs. Patricia Aburdene writes in Megatrends 2010, “Transcendent values like trust and integrity literally translate into revenue, profits and prosperity.”

Take a moment to assess the level of trust in your business. Is the level of trust growing profits or is it costing your company? Put your BBB accreditation to work at building trust and increasing profitability.

 We’ve officially entered an exciting time of year at the Better Business Bureau. The office is a buzz over Integrity Counts! Each year we go through the process of accepting nominations for outstanding businesses to be recognized with the Integrity Counts! award. More than 100 companies were nominated; nearly 40 of the nominees invested the time and resources to create an in-depth assessment of how they build integrity into their business everyday. Then, the judging begins. Judges volunteer countless hours, pouring over the applications to choose one company in each of the five categories.

Judging wrapped up last week, and today I had the honor of notifying two businesses. I walked into the Automotive Clinic in Twin Falls, recognized the owner from his picture in the application, and introduced myself. As soon as I said, “I’m with your Better Business Bureau,” he said, “Oh no, what did I do?” Not exactly the reaction we hope for, but it is common. The reaction provides a great opportunity to tell our story. In this case, I got to say, “I’m here because you’re doing something right.”

Integrity Counts! is what the BBB is all about: Celebrating great businesses going above and beyond in acting with integrity. When you and I can walk into a business and know that business is built on the principles of honesty, transparency, responsiveness and integrity, it gives us great peace of mind and builds a trust relationship between the customer and company. The BBB lays the foundation for that trust relationship through a set of standards that are relevant to all types of business.

Now, more than ever, the trust relationship is key to business success. Consumers have so many buying choices and so many options to find products and services, the shopping process can get a bit daunting. Trustworthy businesses survive the economic ups-and-downs because they have a strong, dependable customer base. Trust is a win-win proposition for businesses and consumers.

Remember, if you’re building trust with customers, having the BBB visit your business is a good thing!