Phone scammers getting more aggressive

TRI-COUNTY AREA--Local law enforcement have been warning seniors to be wary of phone scammers who are growing both more technologically proficient in how they commit fraud and more aggressive in whom they target. Scammers now have the ability to change their phone numbers to make them look local while they impersonate a credit card company, the Internal Revenue Service or even a family member, and for many, senior citizens are their primary target.
"We call it frauds and scams, not spam. And it's all about identity theft, and again (criminals) used to have field days burglarizing someone's house but now they can get in using a telephone or keyboard, but the telephone is the main thing," said Ron Spike, Yates County Sheriff.
Similarly, in Schuyler County phone scams are also a problem, with over 53 complaints already this year, according to Schuyler County Sheriff Bill Yessman.
"The issue with a lot of these is that they come from foreign countries and they feed into a USA computer so that a call appears that it comes locally or from the USA and it's not. It's coming from places like Russia and Africa and that can make it really hard to track down. Organized crime around the world has gotten off the street and onto computers and they can make a very good living doing that," Yessman said.
Spike said according to statistics, 70 percent of senior citizens are targeted by scam phone calls.
"They target older people and use dishonest methods to try to take something of value from them like money or credit card information or their identity. There are hundreds of variations of scams going on across the country," Spike said.
For the first six months of 2019, Spike said the sheriff's department took 21 reports of IRS scams where individuals threaten to arrest or take property of individuals unless they pay an amount over the phone, 24 scams aimed at ID theft, 11 sweepstakes scams, three craiglist.com scams and four instances where scammers pretended to be an individual's grandchild.
"We don't arrest people for owing money to the IRS and they don't do things over the phone like that. Everything over the phone is phony, it's a scam but they do it all the time," Spike said.
Yessman said in the past local criminals helped scammers by showing up to people's houses to pretend to be someone official, like from the IRS.
"Not all scammers are foreign, we have made several arrests over the years in the general area. Remember that going to a house to collect money is not legal in New York," Yessman said.
Both Yessman and Spike said they work with the FBI when a local resident has been scammed but it can be difficult to track the perpetrators down and get that money back. Spike reiterated that doesn't mean people shouldn't report it when they have been targeted or scammed, but the best recourse is to protect yourself before it happens.
"These con artists are really skilled liars and they want your money, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. We do our best to investigate especially if we think it is in the USA because we can work with federal or other state agencies which we are currently doing with a state agency in Florida," Spike said.
With new scams being invented every single day, Spike said it is a good idea to visit www.ic3.gov for a constantly updated list of the scams that are out there today.
"First thing is put your number on Federal Trade Commissions do not call registry. It doesn't stop the spam calls but legitimate telemarketers won't call you so if you are getting calls you know that it is a scam," Yessman said.
Spike and Yessman also say to not pick up the phone if someone does not recognize a number.
"If it's important or real they will leave a message or try to text you," Yessman said.
Yessman added that with phone fraud and scams being so prevalent the issue should be discussed more in the public to warn people, especially seniors, of how serious phone scams are and how advanced they are getting. To that end, Yessman said members of his department will be attending a forum on phone scams being held by the Schuyler County Office of the Aging on Dec. 18 at the Silver Spoon Cafe inside the Human Services Complex in Montour Falls.
"According to Bureau of Justice stats 20 million people a year are affected by this kind of thing. No one is safe from it but you can do a lot of things to avoid it and recognize it to protect yourself. You need to be guarded against these kind of scams," Spike said.
To get on the Federal Trade Commission "do not call list" call 888-382-1222 or go to donotcall.gov to sign up online.
To see if there is room to RSVP for seats at the Schuyler County Office for the Aging's presentation on fraud targeting the elderly, call 607-535-7108.