The industry of separating hard earned income from a naïve population moves 5.8 billion dollars annually.  Anyone with a telephone number receives a constant daily barrage of attempts to gain access to personal information, to hold electronic devices for ransom, or to deceive individuals into embarrassing situations and extorting money from them.  

The Grant County Chamber of Commerce, Forcht Bank, Federal Bureau of Investigations, Family and Consumer Science (FCS) agent, Asa Conkwright, and Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) agent Chris Ammerman partnered together to offer personal protective training and awareness on how to recognize attempts thru a fraud awareness program.  

The program included FBI agent Chris Hubbuch presenting the most recent trends in fraud impacting Kentuckians and others from across the U.S.  Participants learned how to spot potential red flags to identify popular scams that target victims through electronic communication.   Speakers illustrated how to recognize and respond if you found yourself in one of these scam situations.  Participants were educated on common phishing scams on social media platforms, telephone call scams, and sexploitation scams.  Participants received training on how to utilize settings to protect themselves and personal data to avoid being exploited.

This successful program reached 65 people to evaluate the program a follow up survey of the participants reveals that 100% of the respondents understood that fraud occurs through multiple outlets including email, calls/texts, social media, and mail.  100% felt more confident identifying “red flags” for common scams.   96% reported that they know at least two ways to protect themselves from fraud.  100% of participants reported they knew at least one organization they can report fraud to, with 96% of participants reporting that they plan to report future fraud and scams.  96% of participants reported that they feel confident in their ability to protect their assets.  One respondent noted their gratitude for taking the time to open their eyes to so much that could be hidden.