It’s a call no one wants to get: a law enforcement officer relaying the news that a grandchild has been arrested; a grandchild on the phone asking for help to make bond. Any caring relative would comply. Unfortunately, the scenario is just the latest in a round of scams that tug at the heartstrings to get the unsuspecting to hand over their money.

Recently, two Washington residents have been contacted by men impersonating law enforcement officers claiming to have a grandchild in custody. Money is immediately needed to keep them out of jail. The phone is passed off to another person, this one impersonating the grandchild, pleading for help. In one case, the grandchild had been arrested for marijuana possession; the other, he or she had been in a car accident and been charged.

It’s worked — these scammers took two senior citizens for thousands of dollars — but avoiding falling for the ruse can be as simple as verification, according to Washington Police Department officials.

“If someone calls you and tells you that your grandchild is in jail somewhere, call us. We’ll find out if they are,” said Lt. William Chrismon, spokesman for the Washington Police Department. “And if they don’t want to call us, they should call their relatives — just try to verify the information.”

A telltale sign the call is not on the right side of the law is that the perpetrators ask for money immediately in one of two ways: wiring money through Western Union or putting money on a Green Dot MoneyPak card, a prepaid card that can be readily purchased at a number of retail stores, then relaying the card numbers.

The “grandchild in trouble” scenario is  just one of many scams circulating: callers claiming they’re collecting back taxes that need to be paid immediately; they’re debt collectors and fishing for personal information like social security, bank account and credit card numbers; that the target has won a sweepstakes prize but must first send money to pay taxes on the prizes to receive them. The one unifying factor is that the money must be paid soon — if not immediately — and in an ultimately untraceable fashion.

“Anybody asks you to put anything on one of those Green Dot cards? Any legitimate business will not ask you to send money on a Green Dot card,” Drakeford said.

Once people have handed money over to scammers, there is almost nothing law enforcement can do to pursue the perpetrators or recover lost funds.

“You can’t reach out and touch these people because they’re not in the continental United States,” Chrismon said. “They use computer-generated telephone numbers so you can’t really tell where they’re calling from.”

Chrismon and Drakeford said the problem isn’t going away simply because of how much money the callers can make, even if the percentage of those falling for the scam is small.

“The money figures are astronomical. If you (scam) just one person in every jurisdiction, there’s no telling how much money — the figure’s just open ended,” Chrismon said.

Officials advise anyone who receives a similar call to try to get as much information as they can from the caller before contacting authorities.

“We recommend they contact us. Try to get a name and number, but that’s not going to happen. Try to get the address and name and phone number of the law enforcement agency,” Chrismon said.

“You need to verify the information instead of just sending money,” Drakeford said.