She tried to help her grandson in jail. Instead, Hilton Head woman has $1,200 stolen

A Hilton Head Island woman parted with $1,200 Thursday after her grandson found himself in a bind.

Or so she was told.

According to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office report, the woman received a call around 12:30 p.m. at her Tabby Road home in Port Royal Plantation from man who identified himself as “Sgt. Ryan in Haiti.”

“Sgt. Ryan” told the woman that her grandson, who he identified by name, had been arrested and needed $1,200 to bond out of jail.

The woman told a Beaufort County sheriff’s deputy that she then spoke to a person who sounded like her grandson, who asked her not to tell his parents.

The woman then sent the money via Western Union to an address in Haiti, the report said.

She told the person on the phone to call her back after the “grandson” saw a judge.

When the man called back, he said the grandson had been fined $9,200 and used a number that had a Dominican Republic area code. He called once more using a South Carolina area code and the woman became suspicious, the report said.

A deputy noted in the report that the incident happened outside of the Sheriff’s Office’s jurisdiction and that a search of the telephone numbers the woman provided by the office’s intelligence division yielded no results.

This story was originally published December 12, 2017 at 2:22 PM with the headline "She tried to help her grandson in jail. Instead, Hilton Head woman has $1,200 stolen."