An elderly Roanoke Rapids man was scammed out of $2,000 today when a caller purporting to be his grandson said he needed money to bail him out of a foreign jail.

Captain Andy Jackson of the Roanoke Rapids Police Department said the grandparent honestly believed it was his grandson calling. The more he began thinking about it, however, after wiring the money to Spain by Western Union, he started thinking something was wrong.

“He talked like he was his grandson,” Jackson said. “People can phish information like that on Facebook. This guy thought it was really him by the way he pronounced his words.”

The gist of the scam was that the caller had been jailed for drunk driving and needed the money for bail.

“People need to be wary, they need to investigate and call the people who know their grandchildren or call their grandchildren.”

With the money wired to a foreign country it will be almost impossible to get back. “It can be wired anywhere. It's very tough to track,” Jackson said.