The lakeside area is once again being targeted by scam artists who employ the telephone and wily psychological tactics to talk unwary victims into opening their pocketbooks.
One expat resident was conned out of 10,000 pesos last week after receiving a distress call from a person she presumed to be a Mexican acquaintance. Speaking in fluent accented English, the caller claimed to be stuck at the Guadalajara Airport in urgent need of cash to get out of a jam with customs authorities. The target fell for the ruse, making a cash deposit at a local Oxxo store to an account number provided by the caller. A short time later, after ascertaining that the friend was not in trouble at all, she realized she had been tricked by someone else.
The victim reported the incident to her attorney who revealed that an elderly foreign resident fell for a similar ploy several days earlier. In that case, staff at an Ajijic investment firm dissuaded their client from making a substantial withdrawal after realizing she had been set up in a fraudulent scheme. The target had been called by a supposed friend asking for money to resolve a serious predicament that cropped up while en route to visit the area.
Telephone extortion is another common occurrence in Mexico. In one recent case, a Spanish-speaking lakeside resident inadvertently took a call from a man claiming ties to an organized crime group. He asked for a pay-off to keep family members from harm. Familiar with this common tactic, the target immediately hung up, jotted down the source of the call and reported the number to the 089 hotline.
Another common scam that originated in Mexico and that has now found its way to U.S. border states, according to the FBI, is the “virtual kidnapping” scheme. The criminals contact a victim via telephone and demand payment for the return of a “kidnapped” family member or friend. While no actual kidnapping has taken place, the caller may attempt to convince a victim that he has his son or daughter by having a boy or girl scream in the background.
Law enforcement authorities advise people to utilize caller ID to avoid answering calls from unknown parties. Most extortion calls originate from out-of-state phone numbers. The recent scam calls at lakeside were placed from area codes 833, corresponding to Tamaulipas and Veracruz, and 474 in the vicinity of Jalisco’s northern border. Consider any phone call involving a request for money as suspect.