Barbara Roble came very close to being fooled by scammers.

“I received a call saying my grandson was in jail,” Roble said. Fortunately for her, she took the time to talk about it with somebody.

She decided to reach out to her grandson and found he was not in jail. Then she took the scammer’s information to the police.

Her story had a happy ending. But these scammers wouldn’t keep doing it if it didn’t work once in a while.

So Roble decided to help others avoid getting scammed. She helped set up a class in Montesano.

At 1 p.m. Tuesday (Feb. 18), the Montesano Community Center will host a Scam Awareness workshop.

Terry Wheaton, a risk management specialist at Bank of the Pacific, will discuss the most recent scams and how to avoid being taken advantage of.

“We’re going to talk about the latest fraud scams that are out there,” Wheaton said. “We’re going to talk about identity theft, how to deter identity theft, how to detect identity theft and how to defend against identity theft.”

Wheaton says that one of the best deterrents is to take the time to talk things through.

“One of the biggest things is people are being told not to talk to anyone when they are being scammed. They say, ‘Don’t talk to your bank, don’t talk to the police and don’t talk to your family,’ ” he said. “Any time that you do talk it out, you can figure out if this is legitimate or not.”

Wheaton said he would be happy to answer any questions members of the community might have about scams, ID theft and fraud.

“I’m always happy to go out to the community and get education out,” he said.