Foothills Area
Sept. 9, 6 p.m.
An elderly woman was the victim of a "grandson scam" in which the scammer demanded not money, not jewelry, but iTunes gift cards, according to a Pima County Sheriff's Department report.
Normally in a "grandson scam," a young man will call an older woman and confuse her by telling her he's her grandson is in trouble and needs her to wire him a large sum of money for bail.
In this case, the victim told sheriff's deputies, a young-sounding male had called her, said he was in desperate trouble and needed $1,000 in iTunes gift cards "so he would not go to jail."
Believing him in the urgency of the moment, the woman bought two $500 iTunes gift cards, gave him their barcode numbers over the phone, and hung up—at which point she realized it had been a scam.
Unfortunately deputies couldn't identify the perpetrator.
