Woman says she was scammed out of thousands of dollars by person pretending to be her grandson

A woman said someone scammed her out of thousands of dollars by pretending to be her grandson.

“The person on the other end of the line sounded like my grandson with a cold,” Dolores Mastro said.

Mastro says this scammer had her fooled.

“He goes, ‘Grandma I’ve been arrested,” and of course I go berserk-o and I says to him, ‘Well, what are you talking about?’” Mastro said.

He goes on to tell her a story about how police arrested him after he got caught up in an unfortunate situation that put him in the wrong place at the wrong time and now he needs money.

The scammer then said he’s putting a detective on the phone. That voice then said her grandson is going to end up at the county jail.

“Right away when he said County Jail I thought, “‘Oh my god. This is no place for my grandson,‘” Mastro said.

They told her she could not write a check because it would take days to process

“My only option for getting him out was to wire money to them,” Mastro said.

He gave her instructions on how to do it. Eventually, after she wired the money, she Decides to text her grandson. He calls her immediately, confused about her message.

“Then it hit me, I’ve been scammed. I’ve been scammed,” Mastro said.

But it doesn’t stop there. After she says she filed a police report, the scammer calls her back to apologize

“And he says to me, ‘I’m going to send you the money back at your address,’ and he uses my address,” Mastro said.

Mastro she doesn’t think she’ll ever see that money.

Channel 11 reached out to Pittsburgh Police and they told us in part “...if anyone receives a phone call requesting bail money, the person should call their local police department to obtain more information...”

Now Dolores says she has this message for the scammer:

“I hope they get caught, I hope they get caught and I hope he spends time in a jail cell and he calls his grandma and she’s not as nice as me,” Mastro said.

The scammer’s identity is still unknown. Police said the incident is under investigation.

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