Fake kidnappers target mom after daughter posts about vacation

WRENTHAM, Mass. — A Massachusetts mother thought her worst nightmare had come true when she was told that her daughter had been kidnapped while on vacation.

The caller told Patricia Hebner that she needed to pay a ransom or else her daughter would be killed.

It was all a scam, but a very elaborate one that had Hebner very worried about her daughter in Mexico.

“A man came on and said, 'I have your daughter; she's in the back of the van. I'm going to kill her unless you get me some money,'” Hebner said. “There was the screaming crying. It was like, 'Mom, help me, Mom, help me, Mom.’ I said, ‘Victoria, is that you?’”

Hebner kept the scammers on the phone while she went to a neighbor’s home and had them call for police.

“She's claiming that she got a phone number. She wants traced, that somebody may have taken her daughter,” a dispatcher said on a 911 recording of that phone call.

Wrentham police are warning that scammers are now tracking people on social media. An Instagram post from Victoria about going away may have tipped them off.

“I think they got into her phone and saw my number. I was her mom; they knew they can get money from me,” she said.

Cox Media Group