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Bogus Social Workers

Phantom Telephone Operator

30-35 years ago, when I still lived across the Ohio River in Northern Kentucky, my family (as well as some neighbors) were plagued for several months by hoax calls from a pretend telephone operator. This Phantom Operator was very professional and obviously a mature, older woman (not a young prankster). The woman would hold individuals on the line for 10 to 15 minutes at a time awaiting international long distance calls which never materialized.

My Mother eventually came to the conclusion that the caller was a veteran Telephone Operator, perhaps even a supervisior, who'd been recently fired or enforcedly retired by Cincinnati Bell. When mom conveyed her suspicions to Cincinnati Bell security, the fake calls ceased almost immediately!

So could at least a few Bogus Social Workers be formerly-legitimate SWs who have been cashiered for some malfeasance or the other and are attempting to get revenge for the perceived unfairness of it all? Or who simply refuse to accept the fact that they HAVE been fired?
 
Phantom Social Workers

I read about this reported phenomena years ago, however a quick search on the internet reveals hardly anything about the subject.

Has anyone else heard of Phantom Social Workers? If so can they point me in the direction of a website, book or even a back issue of Fortean Times?

Ta muchly.
 
There was a great cartoon in FT a few years back about Bogus Socialists Workers. These 2 Trots come to a guys door selling their mag but when he quetions them on the finer points of Permanent Revolution they flee!

They were Bogus Socialists Workers!
 
"Bogus Social Workers" seems to be a British locution, while "Phantom Social Workers" is used on both sides of the Atlantic. The was a PSW episode in Florida several years back with an extremely unhappy ending - the little girl who was (apparently) taken by them was never seen again.

I keep "Phantom Social Workers" reports filed with "Phantom Clowns" and other unfriendlies of th at ilk. (MiBs have their own file.)

"Bogus Clowns" just doesn't seem to have the right cachet. Although serial killer John Wayne "Pogo the Clown" Gacy might fit.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
The was a PSW episode in Florida several years back with an extremely unhappy ending - the little girl who was (apparently) taken by them was never seen again.
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When you say 'apparently', presumably you mean this is an urban myth rather than an actual case?
 
wembley8 said:
When you say 'apparently', presumably you mean this is an urban myth rather than an actual case?
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No, it was a genuine case, but I was being overly-cautious.

Legitimate Florida social workers very belatedly showed up to check on a girl registered to the system who lived with her grandmother.

Grandmother: "Why, two people from Social Services took her away several years ago!"

I used "apparently" because the grandmother obviously could have been lying. But she was never charged with any crime.

And the girl remained missing.
 
Correction and Update

I closely followed the above case when it was front-page news in 2001, but not since.

So I did some Googling. (This is one of those occasions when entering the details I remembered without quotation marks worked wonders.)

The girl's name was Rilya Wilson.

It turns out that the grandmother was not only psychotic, but had a long history of criminal fraud.

She was indicted for the girl's murder in 2005. I don't (yet) know the results.

The grandmother's sister was convicted of helping to make up the social worker story.

So this was not a genuine "phantom social worker" case, but certainly still resonates with that general body of lore.

Probably more to follow.

P. S. And now I feel vindicated for that "apparently." <g> - if there's any <g> to be had in this tragic and evil episode.
 
Sounds like the bogus social workers were a red herring - a ploy to blame the child's loss on a 'bureaucratic nightmare'

But it turns out the case also has other Fortean overtones too -

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/08/State ... kill.shtml

The caregiver charged with murdering foster child Rilya Wilson whispered "I killed it" to a jail cellmate and said she suffocated the 4-year-old because she "had demons," according to the inmate's account in court papers released Thursday.

Robin Lunceford said Geralyn Graham confessed to her and explained that she smothered Rilya with a pillow after Rilya insisted on wearing a Cleopatra costume - something Graham considered evil - for Halloween instead of an angel outfit as Graham wanted.

"Her words were that she knew, at that point, there was no help for the baby and she knew what she had to do and that's it. That was the end of that," Lunceford told prosecutors in a sworn statement. "She said the baby was suffering and she couldn't let it grow up to suffer like that."

Lunceford said Graham, 59, also told her she buried Rilya's body in a ravine near a private lake because "water represents peace" and Rilya had gone there for fishing and cookouts.
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wembley8 said:
Sounds like the bogus social workers were a red herring - a ploy to blame the child's loss on a 'bureaucratic nightmare'
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I don't know. The "Bogus Social Workers" are a largely British phenomenon and received very cursory coverage at best in the American press until the Wilson story broke. The culprit here is likely to be not a very literate woman, so I suspect that she'd never even heard of BSWs when she came up with her story. I find that interesting in itself and perhaps even meaningful in a Fortean context.

But it turns out the case also has other Fortean overtones too
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You are indeed correct and I thank you for this additional information. The "demon" stuff puts an additional spin on things. And I hadn't realized the two Grahams weren't related.
 
HSE warning on bogus callers
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire ... 98638.html
Wed, May 11, 2011

The HSE has issued a warning reminding the public of the importance of asking for identification from individuals claiming to be working for the health service.

The warning comes after an unidentified woman made two attempts in recent days to obtain information by phone from the home of two elderly brothers in their 70s.

The pensioners who live near Effin, Co Limerick, were terrorised a number of years ago by intruders who broke into their home.

The HSE yesterday stressed the importance of asking for identification from people who seek personal information either in person or over the phone.

“All our staff carry full identification,” the HSE said. Gardaí are investigating the incident in Effin.
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Sooo....

Anyone been arrested in one of the UK cases?

Or anywhere, in a case foillowing the _typical_ pattern? - That is, strange not quite social worker person(s) who either doesn't gain admittance - which is odd in itself, if they have a real reason to come in here in the UK and you won't let them they send for the cops - or gains admittance but does nothing beyond maybe inspecting a child or asking some slightly weird questions?

We do have cases on here where a crime has been comitted such as burglary, or on one case murder/manslaughter, but they don't follow the pattern because the strangeness factor is absent.

After all, vanishing / untraceability / strangeness is the essential difference between the hitchiker legends and the undoubted cases where hitchikers have either been put in danger themselves or proved a danger to others.

Not that being a UL makes it any less puzzling. Its also interesting that the presence of the UL in the public conciousness means that people with bad intentions can use the myth to their own ends.

But I bet if you went to the police with an MIB or alien abduction story they wouldn't put it on Crimewatch.
 
It's strange in a number of ways, esp. when you consider the popularity of other types of bogus calling for other criminal purposes eg distraction burglary, and also that there's nothing actually impossible about what's described in most of the cases, and that it must have occurred to some nonces at some point that this could make for a potentially effective 'job' :hmm: with fairly minimal setup.

There's really no reason for it not to have actually happened at some point, just we can;t find it. :?
 
Quite.

The most likely explanation I suppose is some kind of casing the joint or power trip. but as with many of these 'most likely explanations' it doesn't quite fit.

First, why would they do it once or a few times then not again? Most career criminals don't change their MO, even if rumbled, they just try again elsewhere.

Second, where are the actual burglaries? They aren't distraction burglaries, so wouldn't there be a breakin later?

Third, there seems a MIB like mismatch - the perpetrators come over as intelligent but clearly act oddly. You'd expect either a good impersonation by efficient crooks or one that fell down on detail from the start by the less bright. For example, you'd expect them to flash some sort of fake ID.

I'm not really in a mood for mysteries today, maybe it is all explainable by mass hysteria coupled to a few misreported genuine cases. It doesn't feel like it, though, and the police reaction seems to suggest there is more to it than that.
 
Just posting to say that the phantom social workers (or at least the fear of them has surfaced in the village of rossington, with the following status doing the rounds:

WARNING to all people in the rossington Doncaster area.. there are 2 women going round in a small white car claiming to be from social services.. DO NOT let them in they are fakes trying to get hold of kids.. please repost this to warn people out there!
 
Some of the case are undoubtedly hysterical attention seekers, there was a case here not so long ago where a woman claimed some lunatic had tried to take her child from the back garden, in the process he slashed the kids trampoline, there were lurid stories about a struggle to get the child off the abductor. Tales of horror in the local rag, picturing said woman cuddling child etc, and police take men in for questioning!

It now turns out she made the whole thing up! It took the police about 6 weeks to suss it out, as soon as I saw the story I smelt a rat, but the good news she has been charged with a number of offences and will be appearing before court soon

But it’s all gone social network now, .there can’t be a month that goes by without someone warning parents about supposed paedophiles lurking around school gates, the last time this happened the local police and the schools had to issue a statement that it was all a load of nonsense
 
Cochise said:
But I bet if you went to the police with an MIB or alien abduction story they wouldn't put it on Crimewatch.
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But does that automatically prove that all reported paranormal experience are bogus, or merely that the police are not necessarily the best people to investigate them?
 
I don't know how enlightening this is because it's such a vague memory, but years ago I read a newspaper article (no remembrance of whether local of national) in which someone from the Police fessed-up that Bogus Social Worker stories never checked out. Though they had to take them seriously, such claims were generally found to be an act of attention seeking on behalf of the mother I seem to recall.

I remember this only because I was so taken-aback that such stories that got taken so seriously - that made it into the press and on telly and everything - could be someone's fantasy/lie. It amazed me. Now I'm a lot older and know human nature so much better and it doesn't surprise me at all

Have to add though, I do find the similarity between MIB and BSW very interesting. It's such a weird/high risk/pointless act, there is surely more to the whole BSW thing than we will ever know.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
Cochise said:
But I bet if you went to the police with an MIB or alien abduction story they wouldn't put it on Crimewatch.
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But does that automatically prove that all reported paranormal experience are bogus, or merely that the police are not necessarily the best people to investigate them?
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That wasn't what I meant. I was trying to suggest that the police see BSW as in a different category to, say, MIB, which is in itself a little odd. Maybe, though, it is because children are the apparent object of BSW behaviour and the Police can't be seen to be dismissive.
 
Bogus Social Worker Thread

I'm sure I read a thread on bogus social workers here a while ago, but search isn't throwing anything up. Can someone point me in the right direction please?
 
BlackStickWoman said:
Thanks :D I'll master the search function one day, I'm sure!
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The search doesn't always work so don't blame yourself - yet.
 
A BSW report from Gloucester:

Bogus social worker examines baby in Gloucestershire

Families have been told to be vigilant in Gloucestershire after an incident involving a bogus social worker. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
Police have urged parents to be vigilant after a bogus social worker called at a house and examined a baby.

The woman, who claimed she was from Gloucestershire social services, was carrying a false ID badge and a black zip-up folder.

She visited a mother in Deerhurst Place in Quedgeley, Gloucestershire, and told her there were concerns for the welfare of her four-month-old son.

The bogus social worker asked to carry out checks and listened to the boy's heartbeat with a stethoscope during the incident, which took place at 2pm on Wednesday.

Detective Inspector Andy Dangerfield, of Gloucestershire police, said: "We don't know what the motivation for this was but clearly it is very concerning. Our inquiries are ongoing. We have visited houses in the area to warn local people and would urge everyone to be vigilant.

"Remember, do not accept people into your house unless you are 100% sure you know who they are. You can always tell them to stay outside until you have made your own inquiries and if you are suspicious in any way, then call police.

"We have liaised with our partners at Gloucestershire social care services and they have alerted their staff to this incident." The woman is described as white with "slightly tanned skin", in her late 20s or early 30s, between 5ft 6ins and 5ft 7ins tall, with dark shoulder-length bobbed hair.

She had freckles on the left side of her face and wore a black trouser suit with a cream v-neck blouse with frills at the front.

Dangerfield asked anyone with information about the woman to contact the force on 101.

Gloucestershire county council said: "When a social worker calls at your house you will be shown an ID badge, and the reasons for the visit will be explained to you."
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http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014 ... estershire

There seem to be far fewer of these reports than 10 or 15 years ago. Wonder why?
 
Maybe we're due another boom of reports? Heaven knows there's enough anxiety around the subject, whether it is real or not, still around.
 
There's a report of a BSW actually being caught in the most recent FT, she was a teenage girl which doesn't fit the usual profile. Also, as a variation couple of bogus police showing up at a mother's door seeking to investigate her child, one of them a woman with a nose stud... are police even allowed to wear nose studs?
 
Depends on the dress code, different forces have different rules.

But probably not, mainly for safety reasons.
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
Depends on the dress code, different forces have different rules.

But probably not, mainly for safety reasons.
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Also, the fact cops don't show up at your door out of the blue demanding to examine your kids is good reason for suspicion. Assuming it happened at all, that is.
 
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