The call that Barbara Roth got this week would be downright scary to a lot of people.

The man on the phone identified himself as a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, and he had a wealth of information about Roth. Not only did he know her name and address and phone number, he knew that she had filled a prescription over the phone, and he even had the last four digits of the credit card she had used.

The call, though, wasn’t friendly. The man claimed that the woman had bought the prescription illegally, that it had come from the Dominican Republic and that a warrant was going to be issued for her arrest. In fact, they were sending a man to her home, and he would be there in a few minutes.

Fortunately for Roth, she had previously worked for the Better Business Bureau and could smell a rat. She asked the caller for a phone number, said she’d call back and hung up.

Of course, it was all a scam, but an interesting one in which the con men, armed with a lot of information, convince their targets that they are about to be arrested unless they pay a hefty fine, which can vary from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

There are plenty of potential targets, too. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about half of all Americans take one or more prescription drugs.

The Drug Enforcement Administration – the real one – has posted a warning on its website about this scam. It warns that DEA agents don’t call people on the phone and demand they pay fines. The callers are impersonating DEA agents, which is a federal crime.

Realistically, though, how many little old ladies really peruse the Drug Enforcement Administration’s website? There has to be a better way to get the word out, which is why it’s always good to be able to speak to people who have been targets.

Anyone who gets a call like this should report it to the DEA by calling 877-792-2873. A DEA spokesman said the more reports they get from people who have been targeted, the more information they can gather in an attempt to catch the scammers.

Meanwhile, the scammers can sound real. They use the names of real officials within the DEA, and by using spoofing software, they can disguise their real phone numbers.

The DEA spokesman told me that some people who have reported the scam did so only after they fell for it and wired money – supposedly to pay fines – to the Dominican Republic.

One troubling part of this scam is that the con men have a great deal of information about the people they are calling. Where are these scammers getting their information? Have they hacked into pharmaceutical sellers’ computers and made off with the names of everyone who’s ever filled a prescription over the phone or online? Or are pharmaceutical companies selling customer lists to scammers?

The DEA didn’t have an answer for that.

Meanwhile, people should remember, the DEA doesn’t collect fines – or use the telephone.