BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. – A South Florida woman said she and her family were preyed upon and nearly scammed out of $10,000.
"You know, it's hard because I'm really not a gullible person," Michelle Cowden-Crego said.
Cowden-Crego told Local 10 News that she and her family were scammed last week.
Cowden-Crego has two sons -- Adam, who is in high school and Michael, who is in college at the University of Northwestern Ohio.
Cowden-Crego said she was nervous Nov. 5 when she got a call from her sister during school hours.
"I instantly knew right away that something wasn't right because she usually texts me and says call when you get a minute," Cowden-Crego said.
Cowden-Crego said her sister told her that their father received a call from Michael earlier in the day, saying he had been drinking and driving and got into a car accident three hours from school in Kentucky.
He then gave his grandfather the phone number of the public defender who was supposed to be representing him.
By the time Cowden-Crego was looped in, Michael's grandfather and aunt had already learned they were supposed to bring $10,000 for Michael's bail money.
So as Cowden-Crego jumped onto a plane, her sister drove to the address provided.
"But when she got to that address, she said something didn't feel right," Cowden-Crego said.
So she turned around and went to the jail, where she quickly found out Michael wasn't listed as an inmate and she was told no one had ever heard of the supposed public defender they had been contacting.
It turns out, the entire thing was a scam and Michael was safely in class. But no one had thought to call him, assuming he was locked in a cell without his cellphone.
So Local 10's Ian Margol decided to give the fake public defender a call.
But as soon as he started asking for an explanation, he was hung up on.
"I can't stop them," Cowden-Crego said. "The police are going to struggle to stop them, but if I educate as many people as I can, that will stop them."