A Vancouver couple is warning the public about a scam that nearly duped them out of thousands of dollars.

Reg and Lois Barclay received a phone call mid-day on Thursday from someone claiming to be their grandson Davis who said he’d been in a car accident in Victoria and needed $4,000 to pay a fine.

He said he had been drinking, the police were involved, and begged Reg not to call Davis’ parents to corroborate the story.

The man was convincing and knew intimate details about Davis and his grandfather, including his grandfather’s nickname “Boppa”.

“I could have sworn it was Davis,” said Reg. “He’s got a distinctive voice. I could have sworn it was him. I was convinced.”

Worried about his grandson, Reg offered to come straight to Victoria with a cheque but the caller insisted on being wired cash.

”No, no, no, it’s got to be cash the guy said. So right away, my instincts thought there’s something funny going on here,” he said.

Reg said he needed to talk to his wife Lois before he could give an answer to the man on the phone.

They told him to call back but he never did. A day later, they got a call from their real grandson.

“I said where are you? What’s happening?” he said, relieved that his grandson was not actually in trouble but safe and sound in Vancouver, knowing nothing about a car accident in Victoria.

They figured out the first caller was really a scammer trying to bilk the Barclays out of their money by appealing to their worries that their grandson was in trouble.

“We felt it could be a scam but then we thought of poor Davis. What’s happening to him? Is he still in jail? They’ve got him tied up or what?” said Lois.

“I think it was someone who knew Davis or someone that knew of him or about him and had information about him because his story was cooked up very cleverly,” said Reg.

It turned out their grandson’s Hotmail account had been hacked and the scammer knew very detailed information about them and their grandson.

“He was almost crying into the phone, very, very forceful. You got to help me. You got to help me!” added Reg.

Now the family wants the public to know about scams like this and to be extra vigilant when someone calls asking for money.

Security experts commonly recommend families have a code word or question that everyone in the family knows but never write it down and only say over phone in an emergency.

With files from CTV’s Alex Turner.