My father was scammed in a similar incident...someone called and said it was their grandson, and that he had caught an illegal fish in Canada, and that he was in big trouble, and needed $3000.00 or he would go to jail. My father sent the $, never calling me to see if my son really was in Canada. That was about 5-6 years ago...probably at the beginning of my dad's Alzheimer's...I don't think he really was aware of what was happening. Sad that people prey on the elderly with these types of phone calls.
The only positive thing was knowing that my dad would do something like that for my son...help him out....but sure wish he had checked it out with me first. When he called me the next day to see if my son had made it home from Canada, I had a real hard time convincing him that he had never been there, that he had been working all day here where we live.