North resident Alandus Ware was recently the victim of the "Grandparents Scam," and he cautions others not to fall for this or similar scams.

Ware said he got a call one morning in reference to his grandson, who lives in Florida with Ware’s son. The person who called was ostensibly a law enforcement officer who said that Ware’s grandson had flown to Canada to attend the funeral of a friend’s father and had somehow gotten in trouble there. He was supposedly in a prison holding cell on drug charges and needed $5,000 to pay a bail bondsman.

Ware wired the money via Western Union from the Mathews Food Lion to Harris County, Texas, reasoning that the Texas address was supplied because he thought wire transfers going out of the country must be routed through a U.S. office. But that wasn’t the end. The next morning, Ware got another call and was told that his grandson needed a lawyer, at a cost of $6,000. Thinking the caller was his grandson, Ware again...