It’s one of the most terrifying calls you can get: your child is in danger.

Several of you have gotten a call just like that this past week, but it’s just a scam. Con artists claim they kidnapped your child or grandchild and they demand money right away.

I talked to one woman who was petrified by the call she got about her 7 year-old son. “I pick up the phone and I was like, ‘Hello,’ ” Lori said. “It was a kid crying, hysterical crying. He’s all, ‘Mommy?’ I was like, ‘Aiden is that you.’ ”

“He goes, ‘Mommy, help.’ Then the guy gets on the phone and he goes, ‘I’m officer so and so,’ ” Lori said. The scammer asked for her name and her son’s name, so she gave it to him. “He goes, ‘I kidnapped your kid and if you don’t send me money, I’m going to kill him.’ So instantly, I’m panicking.”

She motioned to her other son to call Aiden’s school to check on him.

“The guy’s yelling at me to get in my car, drive away, don’t talk to anybody, don’t call the cops or he’s going to kill my kid,” Lori said. “I drive out of the driveway and my son’s waving me down telling me, ‘No, Aiden’s safe in school.’ So I pull back up and my son grabs the phone and the guy hung up.”

Lori called the Sheriff’s Office and was told it’s just a scam.

“That’s the worst phone call anybody could ever get. It took awhile to sink in that it was a scam,” Lori said.

Whenever you get a scam call, take a minute to think things through.

Call to check on the backstory, like Lori did. Don’t send money right away. The scammer was calling from an international number, which is a red flag. My advice is if you don’t know the number on your caller ID, don’t answer your phone. Chances are, it’s a scam. If someone really needs to get ahold of you, they can leave a voicemail and you can call them right back.

Lori is not the only one who got this call. Colorado Springs police responded to a similar call.

“We received a call from a local bank that one of their customers was actually making a transaction and handed the teller a note asking her to call police due to his daughter being kidnapped,” police spokesman Lt. Howard Black said.

“The customer was able to communicate to the teller that he was on the phone with the kidnappers. When the officers arrived, the customer would not disconnect the call,” Black said. Officers figured out the dad was being scammed and his daughter was safe at her home studying for a college exam. Unfortunately, the father had already wired money to the scammers.

If you lose money to a scam, you can report it to police and you can also report it to the Federal Trade Commission. I put a link with more information on KKTV’s website www.KKTV.com, just click on Find It.