By Patricia Breakey
Delhi News Bureau
WALTON _ Identity theft, Internet scams and telephone schemes were the subject of a forum presented by Assistant Attorney General Dennis McCabe and Delaware County Sheriff Thomas Mills at Danny's Restaurant in Walton on Tuesday.
The forum will be repeated at 2 p.m. today in the Community Room at the Stamford office of National Bank of Delaware County at 1 Churchill St. in Stamford.
"At sometime in your life, you can almost guarantee that someone is going to try to scam you," Mills told the 15 to 20 people gathered for the forum Tuesday.
Mills said the most recent scam reported to his office involved an alleged soldier stationed in Iraq who had discovered $5 million that had supposedly belonged to Saddam Hussein and was trying to get it out of the country.
"The best thing you can do is hit the delete button on the computer or hang up the phone," Mills said. "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
McCabe said this is National Consumer Protection Week, and the aim of the forums is to try to improve the quality of people's lives by protecting them from schemes and fraud.
"You can do everything right and still be a victim of identity theft," McCabe said. "But there are also many things you can do to help prevent it."
McCabe recommended that people get caller identification on their phones and not answer when they don't recognize the number or name of the caller. He also suggested waiting until the third or fourth ring before picking up an unknown call, because often the callers are simultaneously dialing numerous numbers and in the interval, someone else will probably answer and divert the call.
Senior citizens are targeted for scams more than any other age group, McCabe said.
"They are targeting your nest egg," he added.
McCabe said a typical scammer first tries to create some sense of excitement often by telling people that they have won something. The second step is trying to create a sense of urgency that you must react quickly or lose out on the opportunity.
"They almost always want money to be wired quickly to some location that is usually out of the country," McCabe said. "They target seniors living alone and will attempt to befriend them."
McCabe also recommended investing in a shredder to deal with all of the unsolicited offers that arrive in the mail.
He also recommended reviewing monthly credit card statements carefully and checking credit reports at least once a year.
McCabe had several phony checks received by area residents that appeared to be U.S. Treasury, American Express or traveler's checks and postal money orders made out for thousands of dollars.
Karen Luttrell, National Bank of Delaware County vice president of compliance and bank security officer, said the bank has seen hundreds of fraudulent checks and phone numbers it can call
to validate the authenticity of the checks.
"We have to walk a fine line because some customers think we are being too nosey when we want to verify a check," Luttrell said.
"People want to believe its real," McCabe said. "They come up with all kinds of arguments as to why it could be real."
