Woman describes new hostage scam she almost fell victim to
CARY, North Carolina -- It was Saturday morning when a woman in North Carolina got a phone call from a man claiming her husband had been in a car wreck that had injured his 9-year old son.
He said his brothers who were with the boy at the time of the crash were angry.
"He says, 'I'm trying to keep your husband safe but it's very difficult right now. My brothers are going to kill him. And the only way that I can stop that is with your cooperation.'"
The woman, who didn't want to be identified, said the caller told her not to hang up and not to try to contact her husband adding, "I've got your husband's phone. Don't you dare call him right now. My brothers will kill him.' And I'm scared to death. I'm driving down the road from Cary to Durham."
She was driving to Durham because her husband works at a car dealership there.
It was the only way she could think of to find out if the call was a scam.
"He says to me, 'Well get in your car right now and go find some money to help with my son's bills.'"
She said the man wanted $2,500.
When she kept stalling, he got agitated with her.
"He says, 'We're bad guys, lady. You don't understand who you're messing with. You're messing with the mob,'" she told ABC 11.
But when she arrived at the dealership, she got a jolt.
"I look in the window to see if my husband is sitting at his desk and he's not there. My heart stopped."
Finally, she found him and described what happened next.
"As soon as I see my husband, I hang up on the guy. The guy calls back; my husband answers the phone and had a few choice words to say to him."
Since she was in Durham she reported the crime to police there.
She also called Cary police when she got home and said she was told there have been similar cases recently, which is why she's speaking out.
"I didn't want somebody else to go through the horrific feelings that I went through and all the trauma that I went through if it could be avoided," she said.
She said she had heard about a number of other scams but not this one.
She said the fact that the caller knew so much about her and her husband made him more believable, especially when he correctly pronounced her hard-to-pronounce last name.
"It's easy for people to say, 'I wouldn't fall for that' or 'I wouldn't do that' But these scams ... if there's an ounce of truth to anything that they say, how did they know my husband was at work that day? Not everybody works on Saturdays. I thought it might be possible. They called me by the right name. I didn't know if that was right or not or the truth, so I'm believing the guy."
