News : Area seniors hear warnings on bank and credit card fraud

An eastern Iowa woman, over age 90 and in the first stage of dementia, is sadly asking her caregivers about the whereabouts of one of her friends.

It’s too hard to explain to this woman that her “friend” is in jail, after scamming her out of $95,000, said Karen Huber.

Huber, the director of Home Instead, collaborated with Sue Travis of the Farmers Savings Bank Heritage Club to organize a presentation for senior citizens on the dangers of scams and Internet fraud Thursday morning in Vinton.

“Those scammers are smart, but we are going to show them that seniors are smarter and tough enough to report them,” Huber told a group of about 20 senior citizens.

Seniors are targets, said Huber, because they are retired, which means they are usually home, have money and are eager to find someone to talk to. Most scammers prey on the trusting nature of small town seniors, and also appeal to their sense of sympathy.

“They try to make you believe they are as honest and trustworthy as you are,” she said.

Huber advised seniors to have an adult child help them review bank statements, and also urged them to check with their bank or call authorities if they think someone is trying to steal from them.

“It’s OK to lie to them,” she said. “They are lying to you.”

Travis told the audience that some customers at Farmers Bank were affected by the recent theft of credit card information from the Target store chain. She told the audience to report any unauthorized charges immediately to the bank. FSB is working with the Shazam debit card company on a new anti-fraud program called FALCON.

Also, both Travis and Huber reminded the audience to never give out bank account or social security numbers over the phone.

“We already have that information,” Travis said.

Benton County Sheriff Randy Forsyth attended the meeting and reported that even the county has been a victim of credit card fraud. Someone obtained the county’s number, and created a new card, which was used in Georgia. Visa, however, detected the fraud and was able to shut down the account within minutes.

Huber said it’s important for those who have been victimized to report it, so the thieves can be caught and punished, and to prevent more seniors from being victimized.

Many victims are afraid to admit that they were scammed, and some fear that admitting it may cause their children to take away checking account or credit cards, or even put them in a nursing home.

Huber said one advantage of being a customer of a small town institution where the bankers know all of their customers well is that they are able to more quickly detect something that would be unusual for that particular customer. She encouraged anyone with any question about the legitimacy of any offer or transaction to contact a bank.

“We’d rather see 50 requests for something that is legitimate and have to say, ‘Hey that is OK’ than to have one person be scammed,” she said.

Phone fraud

A variety of scams involve telephone calls; a variety of "Sweepstakes" offers tell the target that he or she has won some money, but needs to send a check to claim the prize.

Forsyth said several area residents have lost money that way. Most of those scammers are from outside the U.S., so recovering funds lost to those scams is virtually impossible, he said.

Forsyth''s advice is to "politely hang up" on any caller with an unsolicited offer.

One woman in the audience asked how scammers can get past the "no-call" list. Huber explained that legitimate companies follow those guidelines, but scammers do not follow those rules.