Grandparent Scams: How to Recognize an Emergency Call
A family member calls needing money urgently? Hang up and call them back on a number you know. Learn how grandparent scams work.
If someone calls saying your grandchild or another family member is in trouble and needs money immediately, hang up.
Call your family member directly using a phone number you already know. If you can't reach them, contact another relative who can verify where they are.
Don't send money, buy gift cards, or provide financial information based only on the call. And if you're told to keep the emergency secret from the rest of the family, take that as a warning sign.
Hang up and call your family member directly.
Don't use a phone number the caller gives you. Use the number already saved in your phone or another number you know belongs to them.
If they don't answer, call another relative who can help confirm where they are and whether anything has happened.
Don't send money while you're trying to figure it out. A real emergency can be verified. Taking a few minutes to make another call could stop a grandparent scam before any money is sent.
And don't let a request for secrecy stop you from checking. If someone says, "Don't tell Mom and Dad," or asks you not to contact anyone else in the family, that's a reason to make the call.
A grandparent scam is a type of family emergency scam in which someone pretends to be a grandchild or another close relative who needs money urgently.
The caller may say they've been arrested, injured in an accident, hospitalized, or stranded somewhere. Sometimes another person joins the call claiming to be a lawyer, police officer, or other authority figure.
The details are designed to create panic and make sending money feel more important than stopping to verify the story.
Older adults are frequently targeted by imposter scams and can experience significant financial losses from them.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, people reported losing over $3.5 billion to imposter scams in 2025.
The details change, but many calls follow a similar pattern.
A call might begin with something vague like, "Grandma, it's me."
That can prompt the person answering to respond with a name: "Michael?"
Now the caller has a name to use for the rest of the conversation.
This is why it's better to ask the caller to identify themselves rather than filling in information for them.
Next comes the emergency.
Your grandchild has been arrested. There was a car accident. They're in the hospital. They're traveling and something went wrong.
The situation is serious enough that you feel you need to act immediately.
You may then speak with someone claiming to be a lawyer, police officer, doctor, or another person handling the situation.
This can make the story feel more legitimate. Instead of one person making an unusual request, there now seems to be another professional confirming it.
Don't rely on the phone number shown on caller ID or contact information the caller provides as verification.
The caller explains that money is needed for bail, legal fees, medical costs, or another urgent expense.
You may be told exactly how much to send and how to send it.
If you're being instructed to use a particular payment method and discouraged from considering alternatives, stop and verify the situation independently.
This is one of the most important warning signs.
The caller might say your grandchild is embarrassed, doesn't want their parents to know or could get into more trouble if anyone else finds out.
Whatever the explanation, the result is the same: you're being discouraged from doing the one thing most likely to reveal the scam.
Call someone else in your family anyway.
The emergency doesn't always involve bail. The same basic family emergency scam can use several different stories.
Different stories create different kinds of pressure, but they all depend on the same thing: getting you to act before you verify.
Hearing a familiar voice used to feel like strong evidence that you knew who was calling.
That's becoming less reliable.
AI tools can be used to create convincing imitations of a person's voice from recordings. Audio posted publicly online can potentially give scammers material that sounds like the person they're impersonating.
That means an AI voice cloning scam may sound much more convincing than an obvious impersonation.
You don't need to determine whether a voice is real while you're on the phone. Verify the person another way.
Hang up and call your grandchild directly using the number you already have for them.
Families can also agree on a code word or phrase ahead of time that can be used when someone needs to verify a real emergency. Choose something that isn't publicly available on social media and that everyone in the family knows not to share.
Most importantly, don't treat a familiar-sounding voice as the only proof of identity.
A request for secrecy can sound reasonable in the moment.
Maybe your grandchild is embarrassed about being arrested. Maybe they don't want their parents to worry. Maybe the supposed lawyer says discussing the case could make things worse.
But secrecy serves another purpose by stopping you from checking the story.
Calling your grandchild's parent, sibling, or another family member could resolve the question in a few minutes.
That's why a request like "please don't tell anyone" should make you more likely to contact someone else, not less.
A real family emergency doesn't become less real because you verify it.
If you're thinking about how to protect parents or grandparents from scams, you don't need to give them a long list of every possible story a caller could invent.
A few family habits can make these scams much harder to pull off.
These conversations don't need to be frightening. The goal is simply to establish what everyone will do if an unusual call comes in.
If you sent money before realizing the emergency may not be real, don't send anything else.
Contact the company you used to send the money as soon as possible.
If your bank, card or another financial account was involved, contact that provider too.
Keep the phone number, messages, receipts, transfer information and any other records connected to the request.
You can also report what happened to:
Reporting doesn't guarantee that money will be recovered. It can still provide information that helps authorities and companies connect your experience with other reports involving the same phone numbers, accounts or identities.
Personal information can come from many places, including public social media profiles and other information available online.
In some grandparent scams, the caller doesn't know the name at all. They start with something vague and wait for the person answering to supply it.
That's why it's better to ask, "Who is this?" rather than guessing the caller's identity for them.
Don't rely on the voice alone.
AI voice cloning and other forms of impersonation can make a call sound convincing. Hang up and call your grandchild directly using a phone number you already know.
It may be possible for law enforcement or other investigators to use phone, account, or payment information as part of an investigation, but you shouldn't assume that the number displayed on your phone identifies the actual caller.
Save the number and any other information you have and include it when you report the scam.
Yes. You can report an attempted scam even if you recognized it before sending money.
Reports can help agencies identify patterns, including repeated phone numbers, stories and other details used to target multiple people.
If someone is demanding money based on a supposed arrest, kidnapping, or other emergency, you can contact law enforcement.
For suspected fraud, you can also report the incident to the FTC and FBI IC3.
If you're trying to determine whether your family member is actually safe, contact them directly on a known number or reach another trusted family member.
Not reaching them immediately doesn't confirm the caller's story.
Try another known way of contacting them and reach out to other family members who may know where they are.
Don't send money simply because you weren't able to reach them on the first try.
Focus on one simple habit: an unexpected request for emergency money should always be verified with someone else in the family.
You can also establish a family code word and agree that nobody in the family will ever ask for an emergency payment while insisting it be kept secret.
If you believe you've sent money because of a scam, contact MoneyGram as soon as possible and report fraud to MoneyGram.
Once money is transferred and received it cannot be recovered and, unfortunately, you will be at a loss for any money transferred.
