Yes this is a fairly old scam where a phone call comes in and is answered by a targeted elderly person. With a phone number or name search I can tell you just abut everything you want to know about a person from the internet The caller says that a young man related to them was arrested for narcotic or alcohol related offense and needs several thousand dollars to get out of jail and they can send the money by Money Pac or Pay Pal or Western Union and they give the above return phone number which is out of Montreal Canada.. The funds are transferred to an account online or by phone.

They will even call back if they find a person gullible enough and try to up the amount of money and try for a second time to defraud them.

The way this works so well is that they target the elderly and the elderly often times can not hear well and they make up an urgent need for the funds to rattle the person called and to get them to speed up and get the money without first having time to think. Face it most elderly people do not want their friends knowing their relative has been arrested so they just go to the store and wire the funds or they can even do it by credit card. There are various version to this scam but looking at the dates on this report it has been going on at least since February 20112.

This is one of those scams that should be broadcast on the news along with a lot of other ones as public safety announcements. Being a phone number  out of the Country like this one in Montreal does not mean nothing can be done it just makes it harder to do. The best thing is to make people aware of the scam and then it will not work. Always report these scams to your local law enforcement personnel. You might save someone else from this scam.