Virtual kidnapping. What is it and how to avoid it?

A heart-pounding telephone scam is on the rise, reports the FBI in 2015. It’s called virtual kidnapping, and unless you know how to spot it, it could leave you handsomely out of pocket.

The start of this scam essentially starts out like almost anyone’s worst nightmare. You get a phone call, maybe in the early hours of the morning. You pick up the phone and you hear a sobbing voice in the background. And then a man speaks. He tells you that he has your family member hostage, and that unless you pay him thousands in the next few hours, bad things will happen.

As your heart begins to race and your mind clouds with blind panic, the man tells you that contacting the police will result in fatal consequences.

What would you do?

It’s a quandary that has been faced by many in the last year or so.

But this doesn’t have the same script as your typical taut Hollywood police thriller. Because the man on the other end of the phone is banking on something. He’s banking that your panic prevents you from doing something you really should do. And that is to check if the family member has really been kidnapped.

Virtual kidnapping is essentially the ultimate bluff. It’s pretending you have a treasured family member hostage when you don’t. And it’s already cost at least one man $7,200.

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These scams are often targeted scams, meaning the scammer will probably know something about you – information they have probably gleaned from the Internet and your social media profiles. They may know your name, your location and even the details of the family member they claim to have kidnapped. This is to make the scam appear more real.

However, there are some things you need to do before you start taking the claims the caller makes seriously.

Remember that just because someone is telling you they have kidnapped a loved one, it doesn’t mean they are telling the truth, so you’re default position should be disbelief. But don’t tell the caller this. If you have another phone or the Internet, try and make contact with the allegedly kidnapped family member as soon as possible to see if they’re safe. Meanwhile, while you talk to the caller, ask to speak to the family member on the phone to verify that they are okay, and be sceptical if the caller starts to make excuses.

Always contact the authorities immediately as well. Even if the caller doesn’t have your family member, they’re still committing a crime – extortion – and the police still need to be notified.