In March, the Todd County Extension Agents for Family and Consumer Sciences and Agriculture and Natural Resources hosted a program titled “Scam Alerts,” which was designed to help people understand scams and how they operate to trick citizens out of their money and/or personal information.  Lori Farris, outreach coordinator in the Kentucky Attorney General’s (AG) Office of Senior Protection presented the program, with eighteen persons attending.  

Ms. Farris provided an abundance of good advice to help local citizens not get taken advantage of, or fooled by scammers.  She said that the key to avoiding scams can be summed up with two words:  Stop and Verify.  Whenever someone unknown contacts you about anything, always stop and thoroughly investigate who they are, and what they want you to purchase, donate to, or get involved with.

She explained that scamming attempts can occur via telephone calls, emails, social media, through internet web pages, or by someone showing up at your door.  The ultimate goal of a scammer is take advantage of you by getting you to make a quick decision using your emotions, instead of using your reason.  Ms. Farris went through a list of seven emotional triggers that scammers make use of to get you to buy something, do something, send money, or provide personal information that can be used to take advantage of you in some way.  

According to an end-of-meeting evaluation, the most significant thing learned by the participants was to Stop and Verify.  As a result of the program, participants listed ways they planned to protect themselves against scams including:  refusing to provide personal information to callers, not clicking on internet/social media advertisements, avoiding answering phone calls from unidentified callers, and checking their credit card bill for fraudulent charges.  One hundred percent of the participants said they planned to use the information provided in the session.  The Attorney Generals’ Office also reported they had contacted two of the participants to follow up on scams they had reported at the meeting.

A follow-up evaluation was sent to participants 3 months after the Scam Alerts program and it was returned by eight people.  Eighty-eight percent reported detecting imposters on the phone or on the computer; and 63% researched a company, offer, or product to determine if it was legitimate.  Two people reported talking to someone they trusted before giving money or personal information to callers; six signed up for free scam alerts; two added their phone number to the National Do Not Call Registry; and one person reported a potential scam to the Attorney General’s Office or local law enforcement agencies.

Most of the attendees reported sharing the Scam Alert information with other people, including one who presented the information (including the presentation handouts) to 10 seniors in her Sunday School Class.  One participant also shared that she discovered that an elderly loved one had been talking to a scammer who claimed she had won $700,000.  The loved one believed the scammer and was going to send a check for $7,300; then he in turn, would send her the “money she had won.”  The family intervened; blocked the scammer from calling, and took steps to prevent scams from happening to their loved one again.

Information from the Scam Alert program was also shared with a much larger audience via an in-depth article in the local newspaper.