I Handled It Badly More Than Once
John 10:5 · Ezekiel 34:16 (NIV)
The Walrus published an investigation last Thursday into what fraud investigators call the grandparent scam.
The shape is simple. An elderly person answers the phone and hears a young voice in distress. There has been an accident, or an arrest. The call passes to a second person who says he is a lawyer. Money is needed now, in cash, and cannot wait.
Rachel Browne’s reporting describes the human cost. A separate US Justice Department announcement documents the scale: in March 2025, prosecutors announced charges against twenty-five Canadians over an alleged grandparent scam run from call centres around Montreal. Canadian police had searched several of those centres in June 2024. Prosecutors alleged more than twenty-one million US dollars in losses. Charges are allegations, not convictions.
Two details in that matter.
The first is where the scammers get the details. The Federal Trade Commission warns that information from social media or a compromised family email account can help make the call convincing.
Being deceived does not establish that a person was careless. The call can contain details that feel private, in a voice under pressure, about a child they love. All of it is engineered to be believed.
The second is the advice. The Federal Trade Commission puts it plainly: “Don’t trust the voice.”
Hang up. Call the grandchild on a number you already know is theirs. If you cannot reach them, contact another family member or friend to check the story. The point is independent verification, away from the caller’s pressure.
Three things this word will not do.
It gives nobody a rule for their own family's phone calls beyond what the authorities publish.
It does not suggest anybody who lost money was foolish. The design defeats careful people at the exact moment their judgment is compromised by fear for a child.
And the reflection that follows does not explain away their loss. These are real households, sometimes left fearful and unable to trust afterward, which is a second loss on top of the money.
This sits closer to home than a phone scam.
I spent thirty-two years in enterprise technology, and I worked under leaders whose decisions left me feeling that their own interests came first. I handled it badly more than once. The way I responded cost me professionally, cost me psychologically, and cost me at home in ways that took years to see.
The pattern I could not name at the time was this. Somebody with authority speaks, and the authority makes the voice sound like the truth. You spend years unable to separate what the person said about you from what was so.
That happens in companies. It happens in churches, where the stakes are higher, because the voice claims to speak for GOD.
JESUS says something about voices that offers comfort and calls for discernment.
HE is describing a sheepfold and its shepherd. Later in the chapter HE identifies HIMSELF as the Good Shepherd, the One Who lays down HIS life for the sheep. First comes this.
But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.
John 10:5, NIV.
Recognition matters. The sheep follow the shepherd they know. JESUS is describing belonging to HIM, not teaching that familiarity alone makes a voice trustworthy.
And HE is not saying that anyone deceived by a leader failed to know GOD well enough. The passage cannot be turned into another accusation against the person who was hurt.
Then Ezekiel, in a chapter where GOD confronts shepherds who fed themselves and left the flock scattered, and promises to care for the sheep HIMSELF.
I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak
Ezekiel 34:16, NIV, excerpt.
Four verbs and GOD takes responsibility for all of them. Search, bring back, bind up, strengthen. The rest of the verse includes judgment and justice. HIS care for the injured does not excuse those who harm the flock.
The promise does not begin by asking the scattered sheep to prove they should have handled it better.
The person who misused GOD’s name does not get to define HIS character.
That has to be said plainly, because a great many people have stopped listening for GOD at all, and the reason is that the last voice claiming to be HIS did damage. The claim is not the credential. Saying “I am your grandson” does not establish who is calling. Saying “I speak for GOD” does not put a person’s words beyond examination.
Somebody reading this still carries another person’s verdict as though it were GOD’s.
It sounds authoritative because that person once had authority. It uses language you learned in a good place. It tells you what you are, and it may have been telling you for years. Questioning it can feel like questioning GOD HIMSELF.
There is no instant test here. There is room to return to Scripture in context, to look closely at CHRIST’s character, and to seek people whose care can bear questions. You do not have to do that work alone or on somebody else’s timetable.
What can be said is that the shepherds’ failure does not exhaust GOD’s care. In Ezekiel, HE promises to seek and tend the flock HIMSELF. The people entrusted with care are accountable to HIM; their failure does not become HIS character.
This does not resolve everything. Voice cloning can make an impersonation sound familiar. Some people never get their savings back, and some never trust a phone call again.
What holds is that the sheep run from a voice they do not know, and that HE goes looking for the ones who were scattered.
I am not here to prove myself. I am here to make HIM visible.
🙏 To the grandparents who sent the money, who have not told anybody, and who are now afraid of their own telephone.
🙏 To the families helping someone recover from a scam, who can make it easier to tell the truth without shame.
🙏 To the one who left a church and has not been able to pray since, because the last voice claiming to be HIS did the damage.
🙏 To everybody who has worked under someone who misused authority, and responded in ways they still regret.
Grace and Peace.
Sources: The Walrus, September 24 introduction to Rachel Browne’s investigation; US Justice Department, March 4, 2025 charges; FTC, family emergency scams and voice cloning; FTC, fake emergencies and personal information; John 10 and Ezekiel 34, NIV. News reading began with the 1440 Daily Digest. Scripture quotations: New International Version (NIV).