Article said the imposter in this case claimed her phone had been confiscated.

Fraudsters tend to also plan things such that the impersonated person can't be reached by phone at that time, either by choosing a time when they somehow know they're unavailable (e.g. impersonated person posted on social media they're boarding a plane) or in one case (12 years ago though) my SIL's parent's landline was bombarded with spam calls until they decided to leave the phone off the hook at which point the scammers phoned bank who couldn't reach the parents on their main line, of course this was the bank's problem (and there was probably an inside person facilitating) so they got their money back, but still a major inconvenience for the victim.

Probably the only sure advice is to be exceptionally weary of phone calls with supposed extreme time pressures to send the money now.

Yes, having a secret code is probably the right answer. My wife's family always has, but mine doesn't. I suppose we should probably fix that.

This is a good reminder that we should review that, since its been 10 years or so.

Fun.