Sales rep at work related this story that happened to him:
1. He was called on his cell phone by a private number
2. Being a sales rep he answers ALL calls
3. He heard a male voice saying "Dad, they're kidnapping me"
4. Then another voice saying if your want to see your kid again you need to follow these instructions.
5. Don't hang up, don't call the police, don't talk to anyone.
6. This person directed him all over town, and had him wire $5000 in $1000 increments.
7. After this was all over he called his son (wasn't kidnapped) and the police confirmed it is a known scam.

I asked him why he didn't write someone a note and he said all he could think about was his son being kidnapped. He said the voice even sounded like his son.

Now...what are the odds that someone knew he had children, let alone a son... for a random call...

If this is truly random, be safe with your family.

CaliRN

If he had the opportunity to call his son, why didn't he do that first?

See step 5 above.

he could of called from a different ph.

Did he try to negotiate costs?

$5K sounds like a lot of money if all you get is your teenager back.




Dave

A third world scam.....they knew he had money and children....

With social media easy to get a lot of information about people and families.....

Sounds about a phoney as all the bimbo's getting picked off, held for couple days and turned loose. Maybe people just want their name in the news.never hear anymore about it soon afterword!!!!!!!!

Words of wisdom from our resident Mouth Breather.




Dave

Have someone else call your kid. Schit ain't hard, and plenty of ways to do it without telling anyone what is going on. "Hey, my phone is acting stupid. Can you call my son for me?" Text the kid and ask if he wants to go out for pizza for dinner, or take his GF out this weekend, or whatever.

Remember two years ago the psycho that killed a few folks in LA?

Prior to actually going postal, subway and bus video showed the guy pointing his pistol at people's heads whilst they were engrossed in digital devices.

People are not aware of their surroundings, nor do they have common sense.

Mr. flave sir: As too the fact I have no idea whom you are or any idea as to what you have, and you are in the same situation with me, lets throw out the olive branch of peace?? We can go on calling each other names drawn at random which have no meaning what so ever, or we can both go on enjoying this site as we choose. I make the first move extending the hand thanks: hick

Seems so simple until you get the call and it's your kid.

If it was my kid, you could bet your ass that I'd be doing everything possible to verify and to get a HELLUVA lot of assistance and support on finding the kid and hopefully killing the SOBs involved ASAP.

Verification comes first, and there are a LOT of ways to skin that cat.

Kid probably has a best friend, right? Or GF/BF? Damned sure has a mother, and other relatives.

THINK.

let the games begin!

as to the OP, sounds like gambling debts to me. 5k?
of course it was in calif.

I hear you, but if I'm say driving down I-40 at 75mph by myself I don't have a different phone available.

I have no idea where this guy was at the time. I can't imagine trying to explain to some stranger at a check cashing center in Watts if they could call my son to see if he's alive.

With social media it's extremely easy to find out extensive amounts of information on someone.

I THINK, it is easy to second guess someone when you aren't the one in the situation. #MMQB

Seems like it would be more rewarding to have a job.

You can text while talking on the phone. You can even text 911 I believe. You can ask your kid what your daily carry gun is and if the answer is wrong, you know it's BS.

Rather THINK and verify, than to be a #sheep and #easy mark. BTW - #MMQB and actually thinking about what could have been done differently might help someone else if they find themselves in a similar scam.

Obviously, YMMV.

Yep. Simply thinking for about 60 to 90 seconds about how to verify things or get help is never a bad idea.

He coulda stopped, sent texts and stayed with the call.
It ain't all that difficult, even a caveman coulda done that, at least.

If the kid was there to say he'd been kidnapped, just have em put the kid on the phone again, to tell him what the color is on the wall in his room, or somethin.

I asked about many of the same things here, why didn't he text his son, why didn't he write a note to have someone call the police, etc. His comment was that all he could think about was getting his kid back.

Don't think that this was his scam, nothing in the local fish wrapper about it, and he was really shook up for two or three days.