Palo Alto police are warning local Rotary Club members to beware of some scam artists who have targeted them.
Detective Jim Coffman said a Palo Alto Rotary Club member got a call Dec. 10 from someone who said he was the president of the Amsterdam Rotary Club. The man said that the son of his club's secretary was traveling in California but lost his wallet in Yosemite and needed travel money to get back home.
The Palo Alto club member later met a man at Stanford Hospital, gave him $500, and arranged transportation to San Francisco Airport.
Later, another Palo Alto Rotary Club member got a fax from the Rotary national office warning members of a scam involving a supposed Rotarian from Amsterdam, and the Palo Alto club member knew she had been had.
"They are talkers, that's what they do," Coffman said of the scam artists. "They come up with fairly believable stories."
Asking for help from a Rotary Club member is a tempting scam because Rotary Club members have an ethic of helping out fellow Rotarians from elsewhere. Anyone getting such a telephone asking for money should call Coffman at 329-2307.
Coffman said he believed the scam artist or artists have Rotary Club directories or mailing lists. But they were lucky in one way this time. They might have ended up calling Rotary Club member Chris Durkin, who also happens to be Palo Alto's police chief.
--Don Kazak
Back up to the Table of Contents Page