NORWICH – An elderly woman fell victim to an international scam in Norwich last week, losing more than $1,000, and now police are warning people to be careful.

The incident began when an elderly woman received a call for a man claiming to be an official from Canada. The man told the woman her grandson was in jail and was too embarrassed to call his parents. The man said the grandson needed a couple thousand dollars for bail money and asked her to wire the funds using a routing number.

Police Chief Joseph Angelino said the caller knew personal information such as the names and relations of family members, their occupations and the grandson’s general traveling plans. Before the woman could confirm the information with other relatives, Angelino said, she wired an undisclosed amount of money to the account number.

“We’re sorry this happened, but there’s not much we can do. It’s not like a shoplifting case or a stolen bike where we can lay hands on a criminal and on evidence. The jurisdiction issues exceed our resources and then there’s actually proving what individual actually picked up the money at the other end,” said Angelino.

Angelino said past scams included con men calling for bail money and posting “too good to be true” offers online for car parts and antiques, to name a few. The chief speculated that scammers were utilizing social networking sites to acquire people’s names, dates of birth, phone numbers, addresses, relevant relationship information and traveling habits in making the phony calls as believable as possible.

“We’re saddened every time it happens. Something I tell people whenever I get a case like this is, ‘I’ll take this as far as I can, but you have to know the chances of finding out who’s done this or getting you money back is near zero,’” said Deputy Chief Rodney Marsh.