Silver Ridge Park Woman Scammed Out Of $30,000

Police are warning residents in the senior communities not to fall for a scam in which callers ask for money for a "Jamaican lottery," police said.

An 81-year-old Silver Ridge Park woman was the latest victim. She sent roughly $30,000 to a caller who turned threatening during the later part of the scam, Detective Sgt. James J. Smith Jr. said.

"Her daughter lives in North Jersey and had no idea this was even happening," Smith said.

The victim was too embarrassed to tell police or relatives how she became involved in the scam, but did say she received daily phone calls.

"She was ordered to start sending the money," Smith said. "She would send money all over the United States every week."

Police were able to track the cell phone number to a location in Jamaica, he said.

The male caller told the woman he was at the Red Roof Inn in Toms River and could "watch" her if she did not cooperate, Smith said.

The scam was the latest fraud aimed at residents in the senior communities. In late November and December a Holiday City woman was bilked out of thousands when a man pretending to be her grandson called, told her he was in trouble and asked for money.

The woman - whose name was withheld by police- received a phone call around 11 a.m. on Nov. 28 from a man who said "Do you know who this is?" according to the police report.

When the woman said her grandson's name, the man told her he was in trouble in New York City, had been involved in a car accident and needed her to send him money.

A man who identified himself as the grandson's public defender then got on the phone and asked the woman to wire $8,662 to his secretary through Western Union, according to the police report.

The woman got another call shortly after from the bogus public defender, who told her there had been a problem with the Western Union transfer and to wire $2,055 via Moneygram to a CVS store, the police report states.

The woman then went to the CVS store wired the money. She sent more the following day when her "grandson" told her he needed more money for transportation.

When the woman told her son, a Neptune police officer, he tracked down her real grandson, who told him he had never called his grandmother and asked for money.

Residents who think they are being scammed need to call police and relatives immediately, Smith said.

"If someone calls you and asks for money, tell them you'll call them back," he said.