On one hand, we are going to warn elderly folks to be careful when they receive distress calls that their children/grand children needs money to "bail-out" of whatever fake troubles they seemed to be in. On the other hand, this is going to cause the "cry-wolf" and dissensitization effect, because when the REAL grandson/children needs help, the elderly folks will take twice as long to respond to a real need.

So, it is not just about the lost of $37,000 and the warning signs that it sends across the entire internet. But the fact that if the elderly folks are going to receive real distress calls in future, the ones who may suffer are the kids.

"Oh, this is another scam" Hangs the phone.

This is another case of distress scams, but was called the "Facebook scam" because the scammer hacks into a Facebook account, and uses that to send out distress signals. Distress scams could happen to any types of accounts, and in the past, we have reports of scammers hacking into Yahoo email account as well.

Cecile was nearly the victim of what All Facebook calls, The Western Union Scam, “I’ve Been Robbed! Western Union Me Money!” “You’re browsing around Facebook and suddenly one of your friends instant messages (IM) you to tell you that they’re stuck in another country, they’ve been robbed, don’t have a wallet, and need money to get out of the country. It’s a horrible situation but what are the odds that they found a computer to log on to in order to instant message you? Even worse, what are the odds that one of your friends who was traveling abroad got robbed and wasn’t able to find anybody to help them out?”

When the elderly first approached the Walmart employee, the latter should have warned her that there are ongoing scams that targeting elderly folks like her. In fact, they tried to process the payment and found that it was refused "for an unknown ...

Reference to Little Red Riding Hood Story: I will huff, I will puff, and I will blow your house down! These two scammer cum robber forced their way into the homes of elderly folks and demand to be paid for repairing the "leaking roof". Otherwise...

This is another win against phone scammers targeting elderly folks, impersonating as their grandson and asking for money to "bail" them out of trouble. A week ago, a Walmart employee also did the same thing to help prevent a scam from succeeding. ...

We received this report from one of our readers. Her account was hacked, and the scammer was using it to sending a distress email to her boyfriend asking for money. Some quick advise to protect your email passwords: 1) Do not use the same login pa...

Another distress scam is reported by the university student news site.  The lesson here is that, no matter who claims to be calling you and how urgent the matter is. One way of replying could be this, "Hold on, let me call the police dept/official...

We are creating a new category of scam called "distress scams" (go buy this domain name quick!!! just kidding). It appears that this hot scam is spreading like wildfire and we are getting one or two of these news every other day. We had one where ...

Walmart employee, Customer Service Manager Lori Riggle, did the right thing by stopping 83-year old Billye Georgen from committing one of the greatest mistake at her age. She was about to be scammed in a phone scam, where the caller claimed that h...

At least 10 elderly were reported to have lost some money to a phone scam. The scammer called to say that their grandchildren was in a car accident and needs money to be wired over.

Police believe the suspects are going through obituaries, getting the names of the grandchildren of elderly people who have recently lost loved ones.

In two recent cases, victims used a money transfer service to send $3,000 and $7,000 to suspects, say police.

CTV News spoke with an 83-year-old woman who said she was a victim of the scam by a caller.

"He started off by saying 'hello grandma, how are you?' It sounded so much like my grandson that I really got sucked in," says the woman, who asked her name not be used.

A man claiming to be her grandson said he was in a car accident in Quebec and needed $3,300 to get home. She says the suspect called her again later once she'd wired him the money and said he was going to send her flowers. The woman later found out she had been scammed.