Way to go Wally Worlder....

[taxguykarl]

This story.

I had no idea that people were still falling for the old Spanish prisoner scam. Good thing that Wally worlder smelled a rat.

[Pixilated]

The reason people fall for it is that the Spanish prisoner con keeps reinventing itself. Now that they are hitting on elderly people, pretending to be their grandkids, they've struck gold. Too many elderly people won't stop to wonder where little Johnny or Susie might actually be, much less phone to find out -- especially if they're asked to "Please don't tell Mom and Dad!!"

Kudos to the WalMart clerk who realized what was going on and intervened! I hope if nothing else she gets a good writeup in her file!

I'm waiting for my first call of that sort. I have no kids so definitely have no grandkids. It's going to be fun.

[KhirasHY]

There's even more...as we get older, we literally stop being able to tell if someone is untrustworthy as well as we could while younger:

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012...the-brain?lite

The elderly generally don't have that "wait a second" moment that most of us do when someone is just plain shifty because a part of the brain does not activate as consistently as it does when we're younger. That alone is one of the heaviest contributors to elderly scams.

Good going on the employee though, way to save her from taking a financial beating!

[taxguykarl]

There's even more...as we get older, we literally stop being able to tell if someone is untrustworthy as well as we could while younger:

It also depends on the grandparent. Mine would ask for the addy so she could send some cookies--big on tough love, you understand.