Phone Scam Targeting Elderly Making Rounds Again

A scam that often targets the elderly is making another round.

Springfield Police Corporal Matt Brown says you may get a phone call from someone claiming to be a young relative in trouble. They'll say they've been arrested in a foreign country or are in a foreign hospital. Then comes the plea for money.

Brown says the caller usually asks for funds to be sent via Western Union and that it's a matter of urgency. Typically, the address is located somewhere in a foreign country where they're in jail and the call shows as "private" on a cell phone.

Brown says the best thing a person can do before becoming a victim is to hang up, then call whoever they were supposed to be talking to. He says nine times out of ten, they're in their living room and doing just fine.