Lesson learned, it did happen to us!
Holy crap I was going to write about what happened to our family with Facebook!!! If you think it doesn't happen, think again. I'm one of those people that got the shock of their life a couple of weeks ago and its directly linked to my son having a Facebook account.
We got a phone call very early in the morning from my husband's mother who is 85 years old. She says: "I want you to be strong, but I just got a phone call from Danny, he's in jail in Canada". All I heard was my husband saying: "our son, our Danny" in disbelief. Of course being a mother the first thing I thought was our son was hurt at Bootcamp. The stress of being separated from him was huge and the anxiety was starting to weigh on me, which greatly influenced my reaction to this phone call. I thought the worst had happened.
Background - my son enlisted for the United States Navy and was at bootcamp for 9-10 weeks. Before Danny left he wrote on his Facebook that he enlisted and would be gone for several months, etc. His grandparents are also on his Facebook. I don't know what my son has for privacy settings, but it was very easy to now find his grandparents who are listed in the telephone book. And if you saw the pictures of his grandparents you would understand they are sweet and gentle looking and along in years.
So...this sweet grandmother gets a call from my *son* who says to her: Grandma, I'm in trouble, we are out on leave and one of the guys had drugs and we were pulled over for speeding, and now I'm in jail up here in Canada." Grandma says: Danny, did you call your parents and why do you sound funny, are you okay?" My *son* says, its because I'm in a holding cell and I'm afraid, and I don't want to call my parents because they would be very angry." I know I would have recognized my son's voice in a nano-second, and his grandmother had her doubts, but she told us he was whispering and sounded very afraid and she was nearly in tears. This makes me SO angry, think about your own elderly parents, I'm surprised she didn't have a heart attack!
This fake Danny now tells her to avoid becoming AWOL with the Navy, he needs $7,500 wired so he can have a hearing and post bail. Grandma is now completely overwhelmed and withdraws the money from her checking account and is ready to wire it, then decides to call us to inform us what is going on. Fast forward now to us still in bed with my husband taking down this information as fast as he can. We are now calling this number, which is located in Hudson, Canada and sure enough, they inform my husband our son is in jail and will not be processed until they receive this money. I'm thinking...this can't be happening, its a farce and at the same time I'm going crazy thinking about my son is somewhere I can't get to. When my husband hangs up with the wire information, I told him we have to call the Naval Base immediately. Amazing how quickly they got us in touch with his Unit Commander and how seriously they took it, because not 10 minutes later we were assured our son was exactly where he should be at that very moment and no recruit was ever allowed off base for that 9 weeks of training.
Yes, vast relief, and we also figured out exactly where these people were on Google Earth through their telephone number, right down to the street address, called Secret Service and the proper channels of the US Government and gave them that information. We were also told this happens constantly and to be thankful we didn't fall for it.
To end this, I think you have to be very careful when answering any plea for money. These @ssholes had a good answer for every one we asked, such as where is our son, why can't we talk to him, why do you need this money. Being involved in banking for a long time, I realized when I heard *wire* and *money* my antenna was going up with each second. But his grandmother already had the money to wire and was just seconds away from falling for it. I hope everyone reading this will realize it can happen and anytime its a plea for help in the form of MONEY, pay very close attention who you are really talking to.
