Area residents should beware of a potential phone scam making a resurgence. A woman living near Bonney Lake almost fell victim to the “grandparent scam” earlier this week.

Under “the Grandparent Scam,” named by the FBI after its most common targets, a scammer posing as a grandchild or other relative will call a target and claim to be trapped abroad and in trouble—usually an arrest or robbery. They will claim to need money wired fast and quietly to get out of their predicament.

Jo Haberkorn was at home when she received just such a call.

The caller, true to the formula, answered, “Grandma?”

Coincidentally, the person sounded exactly like Haberkorn’s nephew.

“I don’t think I would have fallen for it if he didn’t sound exactly like him,” Haberkorn said. “He did say ‘Grandma’ at first, which was definitely odd. But because he sounded like (my nephew) Jaime, I said, ‘No, it’s Auntie Jo.'”

“Jaime” told Haberkorn he had been in an accident in Peru and needed $3,000 wired in. Because of Peruvian transfer laws, he claimed, the money would need to be sent in $1,000 increments to three people: himself, “Nicole Chester,” and “Sandra Anderson.”

Haberkorn agreed, and she had the money in hand and ready to go to Western Union before a relative urged her to wait and confirm her nephew’s whereabouts.

A few phone calls later, Haberkorn found out that not only wasn’t Jamie in Peru, he was putting in his normal shift at work.

The family arranged a trick to find out just how much personal information this stranger had. Haberkorn had “Jaime” call the real Jaime under the pretense of verifying personal information for the cash wire. The findings were disturbing: Jaime confirmed that the impersonator’s voice was “like listening to a recording,” Haberkorn said. And he apparently had access to personal information, including Jaime’s full name, birthday and Social Security number.

Haberkorn and her family broke contact, screening subsequent calls from unknown persons, and got ahold of the Pierce County Sheriff’s office, then the Attorney General’s fraud division, and the FBI.

“Both (the Attorney General’s office and the FBI contacts) told us there wasn’t a whole lot they could do because the money would have been leaving the country,” Haberkorn said.

There were a few more oddities to the case.

First, in addition to asking Haberkorn to send her money to three different names, “Jaime” asked her to send it from three different people. Haberkorn suspects the scammer was fishing for future victims to target or impersonate, she said.

Second, the alleged scammer gave Haberkorn a Main Street address in Lima, Peru, and there is no Main Street in Lima (the closest equivalent is a small road named Rio Main: translated from Portuguese, it means “Main River”).

Third, and perhaps most strangely, “Jaime” didn’t show up on Caller ID; not even as a blocked number. There’s no evidence of the man’s calls in Haberkorn’s phone log, she said.

“I just want people to know about what happened so they don’t become victims like I almost did,” she said.