When Natalia Da Costa-Cox received a call from her grandson last week, she feared the worst.
He told her he had been in a terrible car crash and needed money to bail him out of jail.
“I felt sick to my stomach,” she said. “I had headaches all day. I cried for a while.”
Luckily, Da Costa-Cox knew it wasn’t her grandson. For starters, his voice was different.
“I’m aware of these scammers and what they’ve been doing to people. In fact, I have a family member whose family has been scammed quite a bit of money as a result of these types of calls.”
A quick text to her real grandson confirmed he was not only OK, but not in jail or in need of bail money.
However, Da Costa-Cox says she’s shocked the scammers knew so much information: her and her grandson’s full names, and their seasonal landline number in New Brunswick that not even all her grandchildren know.
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“Did someone breach my privacy? Did something happen?” she said. “It makes me wonder how did he get that information? I have no idea.”
In an effort to catch the scammers, she played along and began recording the calls — gathering their bank information and collecting purported names of a judge and a lawyer.
But when she took that information to the local RCMP, they told her there was nothing they could do.
“It’s unreal and it’s sad that they don’t do anything about it, that these scammers are still scamming people and nothing gets done,” she said.
An RCMP spokesperson tells Global News the nature of these popular grandparent scams can be difficult to investigate.
“Crime, specifically fraud, has an international component to it, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence, the internet, spoofing of caller ID,” Cpl. Matthew Leblanc-Smith said.
“All these things make it very difficult to investigate.”
RCMP pointed Da Costa-Cox to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, which is operated by the RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police and the Competition Bureau.
A spokesperson from the centre says they cannot investigate cases, but they can warn the public.
“Being the central repository for fraud in Canada, we have the ability to link information for victims of fraud across the country,” Jeff Horncastle said.
He adds people should be wary — even if the phone number or voice is familiar — if they receive a call similar to the one Da Costa-Cox received.
People should hang up and call the person themselves.
“There’s a lot of vulnerable people out there, and these scammers are smart, they’re very intelligent, and yeah, they will get you,” Da Costa-Cox said.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
