ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, Md. — It was 2 in the afternoon yesterday. Jennifer was checking out at the grocery store. She was waiting on a work call. The call came. It was not the one she expected. Here are her words from that call.
"I have never been more scared in my life," she said online. "There is a very realistic telephone scam that everyone should be aware of. Please read all of this and share with everyone. Share on community pages."
She was checking out at the grocery store and when she got a call from a real phone number. She was expecting a call from a contractor so she took the call. When she answered, it was a crying child saying, “Mom, please come get me. Mom, please!"
"It sounded like [name redacted], so I said, “[name redacted] what’s going on?”
And a guy gets on the phone and says, “Who is this?”
She asks, “who is this?”
He says "Ma’am, is this your child?”
And she says “what are you doing with my child?”
At this point she was shaking and tells the cashier to call 911.
Thankfully the man said “ma’am I have your daughter.”
"At that point, I am thinking scam or he has the wrong number and has someone’s daughter, so I keep him on the phone while the cashier is on with 911," she explained. "The officer told me it was a scam and to hang up immediately, which I did."
This was so realistic. It was a real child that sounded just like hers, this was not a recording.
"The threat of my child being in danger is gone, but the concern that the man has two pieces of information about me still remains," she said. "I made a big mistake of answering my phone, “Hello, this is Jennifer”."
What she learned is: Do NOT answer your phone “hello, this is (your name)”.
Set a code word with your kids for them to use if they are in real danger.
The officer said this scam is going on around Anne Arundel County right now so please be aware and make others aware.
