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It was a beautiful morning for a drive to a neighboring country town for lunch. We enjoy a
change of pace and dining at an interesting restaurant in Schulenburg. I didn't see any clouds in the sky and the sun shone brightly. I was enjoying our stereo music from our fairly new car as we drove up the highway. When we drove near the first business in the town of our destination, our cell phone suddenly rang.
I answered the ring and suspected a marketing call. We were receiving many of those that
week. At the other end of the call, there was a garbled message I could not understand. I thought I would play along with the marketer from the other end of the world.
"What?" I hollered back into my phone. He repeated the garbling and I answered, "I can't understand you." For some reason, I thought it could be Sterling, our grandson. Maybe his grandfather had told him we were leaving town. I then said, "Is this Sterling?" The response was again in a garbled voice, hardly in an understandable voice, "Yes, I've been in a car wreck and the airbag went off and it busted my lip and broke my nose. I can hardly talk." I said, "Oh my God, are you okay? What happened?"
This had happened to him in Houston, three years before. I started to say, "Again?" But I didn't.
"Well, I can't talk well. You remember my friend, John, who had cancer? He died and I went to his mother's house to pay my respect. I only had two drinks. Then on the way home, a woman in front of me ran a red light and I ran into her. The police made me take a breathalyzer test and I was only one point over the test line so they jailed me. I now need help getting out of jail."
Our grandson borrowed our extra car the last time he visited us. He left his older car because there was smoke billowing out the tailpipe. We were going to fix it. His grandfather worried all week that something might happen to his nice extra car. I turned to his grandfather and said, "Pull over into that parking lot, your worst fear just happened."
Sterling said, "Do you have a pencil and paper? I need to give you my case number and the name of my court-appointed lawyer. They said I was probably distracted on my cell phone, so they took it away from me. Now here is my case number, case: 64273775 AP. My lawyer's name is Mark Bailey and his number is 339-220-1001." I read back all the information I had written down. Sterling said, "Expect a call from the lawyer and he'll tell you what to do. Please don't tell anyone about this."
We were parked in the first drive we had come up to and it was only a few minutes before our cell phone rang. Grandfather behind the wheel decided he better talk now. "Yes, this is Sterling's grandfather, what happened?"
The caller identified himself as Sterling's court-appointed lawyer, Mark Bailey, and said Sterling is in a lot of trouble. He said Sterling failed the breathalyzer test and the car he hit broad-sided had a pregnant woman driver. This is really serious, the lawyer told him and that he had worked hard to scale down the cost to bail him out. They took Sterling's phone because they believed he was using it at the time of the wreck.
Sterling's grandfather said, "That much?'
"Yes, and I worked hard to get it reduced since it was his first drunk driving offense." said the lawyer.
When he hung up I asked, "What does he want?'
"I knew it, I knew it. It's going to cost us a lot of money before this is over. He said I should get a cashier's check for $9500. And place it in a 9x15 padded envelope. And he would call us back in a short time and tell us what to do and where to mail it."
I could see the grandfather was visibly shaken and that one of us had to stay calm and think logically. I told myself and then him that this doesn't sound right. I needed to call son, Bryan, who was on the way to Houston.
The grandfather said, "They told us not to tell anyone."
" I don't care. No one should tell me what I can do. It's our grandson."
After relaying the story to my son in an almost hysterical voice while he was trying to find a parking place in a lot at a lawyers' office in Houston, he called me back on his cell phone. He said this had happened to a friend of his in Austin and it cost his family much money and his friend spent time in prison.
I thought, "Oh great, this is getting really bad." Next, I thought I needed some reassurance that this story was real. I was obviously not getting anywhere, by then. I picked up my cell phone and said, "I'm calling Sterling on his cell."
The grand-father said, "Remember, they said he didn't have his phone."
I answered that this sounded fishy to me. I knew it was a gamble, but we could maybe find out for sure what's going on. Sometimes Sterling doesn't pick up his phone because he works late hours and likes to sleep late.
I dialed his number and after two short rings, a voice answered. "Sterling, are you okay? Where are you?" I asked.
"Nana? Yes, I'm okay and I'm home. What's wrong?"
I proceeded to tell him what had happened. He started laughing and laughing. And said, "Nana, you got scammed."
"Oh, I'm so thankful you are okay and we don't have to empty our bank account. Here, talk to your grandfather so he knows you are okay." I next called my son back and told him what I found out. He said he started to tell me to leave him in jail because that was too much money.
Next, we pulled up to The Garden Company-Schulenburg, Texas. We went in and ordered the day's special: wonderful snapper fish with shrimp sauce, wild rice, and green beans. It was fabulous and a nice way to celebrate our escape from being scammed.
BIG LESSON: WOMEN, TRUST YOUR INTUITION. AND BEWARE OF SCAMS.
