Several more incidents of scam phone calls from Canada have been reported to area law enforcement.

Bismarck police have received at least four reports of elderly people being called by someone claiming to be a young relative stuck at the Canadian border in need of money. In one case, an 83-year-old Bismarck man and an 81-year-old Bismarck woman wired $3,500 to the person pretending to be their granddaughter. The other potential victims, all in their 70s and 80s, have not wired money.

The Burleigh County Sheriff's Department received a similar report on Thursday. Major Collin Rixen said an 80-year-old woman got a call from someone pretending to be her grandson. The caller said he had been fishing in Canada somewhere he shouldn't have been fishing and needed $2,900, Rixen said.

The caller gave the woman names and addresses in Bismarck where she could wire the money, and asked her not to tell his mother. The woman told the caller she had no way to get to town, so she told the person to call back, Rixen said.

In the meantime, the woman learned her grandson was at work in Bismarck. She called the sheriff's department, and a deputy was able to be there when the person called back.

The initial call and the second call were placed from different phone numbers, Rixen said. He said one number appears to have come from Manitoba, while the other did not match any known area codes.

Rixen said the incident is under investigation.

The attorney general's Consumer Protection Division warns that people should not wire money to unknown people, especially out of the country. Parrell Grossman, director of the Consumer Protection Division, also warns that phone numbers can be "spoofed," and people can make it look like they are calling from one number when they actually aren't.

(Reach reporter Jenny Michael at 250-8225 or jenny.michael@bismarcktribune.com.)