Richard Pongonis and his wife received a call from their grandson one night. Their grandson told them he was in jail after a car accident. The details were unclear, but Pongonis knew he had to help.
"He said they'd had dinner and drinks at a tavern-like place and he got into an accident," Pongonis said. "This turned out to be some kind of a diplomat from Trinidad so he told me. He said he would need $1,480 so I marked that down. He said it was an attorney that was highly recommended to get him out of this case."
Pongonis' grandson made him promise not to tell his mother, Diane, because he didn't want to get in trouble. Pongonis filled out a MoneyGram for $1,480 to send to the attorney and took it to a nearby Marc's grocery store.
After he dropped the money order off, he got a call from a cashier at Marc's. The cashier immediately could tell that Pongonis was being scammed. The call wasn't from his grandson, it was from a con artist. The cashier called him to let him know, then returned his money.
"She says, ‘I'm the one that stopped this from going through with the MoneyGram company,'" Pongonis said.
Shockingly, the scammer called again to ask for more money. This time Pongonis contacted Diane, who told him that his grandson was just fine.
If it weren't for this thoughtful cashier, Pongonis would have been out of $1,400!
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