howdy boys and girls, let me tell you a crime story that just happened to me...

this afternoon, my wife came to my home office looking unsettled - she was fielding a telephone call from a person who claimed that our daughter's caregiver and her daughter had been in a car accident...

my wife gave me the phone because she had heard screaming in spanish on the line and it being my native language, she felt i would be able to handle the conversation more efficiently.

the man on the line asked me for the name of our caregiver and her daughter. i gave it. he told me that he had been doing a drug deal, she stumbled on it as a witness, and now he needed five thousand dollars from me or he would kill her for causing him the loss.

pretty outlandish, right? well, in the moment, it sure sounded real enough - and, would you take that chance?

(if you know anything about grifters, this is con 101: get the mark to give you the information you need to get them to do what you want... we thought we were dealing in good faith at the start of the call, we told the guy the name of our friends and that they were at the doctor)

i told the man i didn't have that sort of money on hand, and he asked me how much cash i had. recently i took out a modest amount to have as an emergency reserve, so i gave him that figure.

the man instructed me to stay on the line, get in my car, honk the horn three times, and drive to a nearby supermarket, whereupon he would give me instructions for a wire transfer.

(now, in hindsight, these people didn't even know where i live - the asked me to give them a supermarket close to me, and in my scared and agitated state, i suggested one)

as i took the instructions, i grabbed a whiteboard and wrote my wife the words "call the police".

over the drive, the guy kept asking me questions - i didn't answer any of them and when he asked me where i was coming into the supermarket from

the man stayed with me on the line through the entire drive, making the case that this was business, he wanted it to go smoothly, but he would kill my friends if it came to that.

so i get to the supermarket... and hear a knock at the window. it was the police - my wife had rushes through the story and they didn't know clearly whether i was victim or perpetrator, so they asked me out of the car (with the kidnapper still on the line), and leave the phone...

the police were professional and kind, but they did cuff and frisk me since my relationship to the crime-in-progress was unclear.

i learned that this is a VERY common scam. by the time i arrived at the supermarket, my wife had made contact with our friends and they were on their way to our house from a doctor's appointment.

i kick myself for being a sucker - and am glad the police intercepted before i wired the money - but i was truly afraid. what i should have done was recite les grossman's monologue from "tropic thunder" - but would you take that chance with the lives of your friends?

here is an NIH article about this scam. these are trying times and all of our nerves are frayed: perfect for predators to take advantage of our fears. https://www.ors.od.nih.gov/News/Pages/Beware-of-Virtual-Kidnapping-Ransom-Scam.aspx

be smart, be safe.

finally, the police told me that this scam can get quite theatrical: gunshot sounds and pictures of someone whom they say is your loved one but is so bludgeoned as to be unrecognizable. i wish i had just given them the liam neeson speech from taken, but, truly, i was terrified.