KITCHENER — Wendy Holland is embarrassed to tell her story, but she says it's necessary to make sure others don't fall prey to scam artists the way she did.

The 66-year-old Kitchener woman was the victim of an "urgency" scam in which people are duped into believing they have to send money to help a loved one get out of jail.

She sent the scammers $9,200 — money she can't get back.

"You feel like such a fool. You feel so stupid," she says.

The newest version of this scheme involves purchasing iTunes cards which are then sold for double the price to criminals in China, said Staff Sgt. Rob Cowan of Waterloo Regional Police's fraud branch.

Holland's nightmare began with a phone call on the afternoon of May 25 from someone posing as her son, Kevin.

The caller, in a garbled voice, sounded like her son, she says.

Holland told the caller that he must have the wrong number. But then he said, "Mom, it's me. It's Kevin. You're my mom."

Holland thought it was her son and asked what was wrong. The man said he had been in a car accident and the car was smashed. He had a broken nose and was in jail.

Before she could speak to him further, another man came on the phone telling her he was her son's lawyer.

The man said he needed bail money to get her son out of jail. When she suggested a bank transfer, the man said the court would not accept a bank transfer and that instead she needed to go to Walmart and get 30 $100 iTunes cards.

Once she bought the cards, she was told to call him back and give him the code number on the back of the cards.

She was told not to tell anyone what was going on. The man said the court ordered her not to speak to anyone.

Holland, who was worried about her son, went to Walmart and purchased 22 $100 iTunes cards. That's all they had, she says.

The man then called her again the next day.

"This isn't enough money. The court won't release him," the man told Holland.

The man posing as her son said the woman involved in the crash was from the United States and that she had surgery and her medical bills were $7,200, which he had to pay.

The man said his nose was broken and he had surgery to reset it.

The man posing as the lawyer told her to return to Walmart and purchase 16 $100 cards and eight $50 cards. She did.

The man called again Thursday afternoon. They would need an extra $5,000 for fines imposed by the court. She was told to go to Best Buy and purchase 50 $100 iTunes cards.

She did. Her iTunes purchases totalled $9,200.

The next phone call came from the man posing as her son. He was crying and said the woman in the crash had died and he was being charged with vehicular manslaughter.

"It sounded exactly like him. I don't know how they do it," she says.

The man told her to call his lawyer and gave her a cellphone number. She called and the man said they needed six $500 iTunes cards, this time from the Apple Store in Conestoga Mall.

Holland called the store because she didn't know where it was. She doesn't own a computer or a cellphone.

When she told a sales person at the store what she wanted, the man appeared hesitant. He called his manager who spoke to Holland for 20 minutes trying to find out why she needed $3,000 in iTunes cards. He warned her that it could be a scam.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

"I told him no one is scamming me. I was so stubborn," says Holland, who told the store staff she was buying early Christmas presents.

Holland purchased the cards and came home. When she pulled into her driveway, she saw her son's car parked in front of the house, but thought it couldn't be his car.

She walked to the back door, went inside and saw his shoes at the door.

"I'm thinking, 'What is going on?'" she says. Then she saw him sitting at the dining room table.

"He thought I was having a stroke. I looked like I saw a ghost," she says.

"Have you been in a car accident? Have you been in jail?" she asked her son.

When her son didn't know what she was talking about, the two sat down and Holland told him the entire story. They called the police.

The pair immediately went to the Apple Store and the manager returned the $3,000 for her most recent purchase.

"They remembered who I was and they were very good," she says as she cried.

Holland says she hasn't been able to do anything in the past week because of the shock of the experience. She loves gardening but feels paralyzed.

"It's mind-boggling that they can make you think that someone in your family is in jail," says Holland, who retired from Kuntz Electroplating four years ago.

"It's unbelievable how they make you think it's real," she says through tears.

Sgt. Cowan said a similar scam duped at least 20 local people out of $40,000 over a period of a month. The caller told people they owned taxes to the Canada Revenue Agency and that they must pay through iTunes. "They prey on emotion, and that gets a senior going," he said.

Cowan says the scam involving getting a loved one out of jail isn't new, but this is a different form of payment.

The iTunes numbers on the back of the card are sold to people in China, he said.

"This is all organized crime," he said.