The elderly man said it was urgent. He walked into the Mercer Island UPS store on April 25 and said he needed to ship an envelope to his grandson.

Rohin Loomba, the owner of the store on Southeast 27th Street, said the man looked “shaky and scared.” When the man left, Loomba checked the envelope and found $9,000 in $100 bills.

“I had heard stories about scams before, and everything just seemed a little off,” Loomba said.

He held on to the package and called the Mercer Island Police Department (MIPD). Officer Bob DeLashmutt got in touch with the sender and his grandson, and thwarted the scam.

When the man came back into the store to get his money, he recounted to Loomba how someone called him 15 times in 20 minutes, telling him that his grandson was in an accident in Brooklyn, New York. If he didn’t send money immediately, his grandson would not get medical attention, the scammer told the man.

“He said they were very persistent,” Loomba said. “I think it might be happening a lot on Mercer Island… It’s a shame that people do that to one another.”

MIPD Operations Commander Leslie Burns said that these scams are not just happening to Mercer Island seniors, but that the elderly are targeted more than others. She said they tend to be more trusting, and unfortunately, less likely to report scams when they do occur. This is also a relatively new type of crime, Burns said.

Some people may be too embarrassed to report being scammed, she said, and the department usually only hears about the scams that are thwarted.

She said that a few of the Island bank tellers have thwarted similar scam attempts by asking a few extra questions.

“It does pay to be just a little bit nosey or pry for a few extra answers if things don’t seem quite right,” she wrote on the Mercer Island Police and Emergency Management Facebook page.

Burns said she encourages residents to talk to their elderly family members about the variety of scams out there, especially phone scams that people are falling prey to.

“If anybody ever calls for any money over the phone, hang up,” she said. “No legitimate agency is going to call and demand money over the phone. They’re not going to demand cash, they’re not going to demand gift cards, they’re not going to do it.”

Both the MIPD and UPS store were complimentary of one another, as both worked together to help a distressed community member.

“Thanks to the quick work of my team and Mercer Island Police Department, we were able to save this gentlemen his cash,” Loomba said.

Burns said that the store owner was the real hero in the story.

“Thanks to the sharp UPS employees who made it their business to get a few details and then called the police,” Burns posted. “If not for them, $9,000 cash would be on its way to Brooklyn, NY today and our resident would have lost all that money.”