Stop the Scammers stops in Mt. Pleasant

MT. PLEASANT — Last week, Insurance Commissioner Doug Ommen visited Mt. Pleasant as part of the statewide Stop the Scammers tour to educate Iowans on how to avoid falling victim to scams.

“Along with the Attorney General's Office, our purpose in these events is to communicate with older Iowans about some of the risks that they can see in hopes that by providing information about the types of scams that are in their area, they also will take that information and provide it to their friends and family members in order to help stop the scammers,” Ommen said.

Ommen says the type of scams across the state vary, but nearly all scams focus on getting a person to feel something more than they are thinking. Some of these scams include romance scams, grandparent scams, investment scams, and pig butchering scams.

While scammers can target people of all different ages, Ommen says the grandparents scam specifically targets older Iowans.

“These are used to coerce money from older Iowans by con artists who pretend to be a grandchild calling from a foreign country in desperate need of money to get out of jail or some other urgent trouble,” the Iowa Fraud Fighters website states. “They may try to keep you from calling other family members to confirm where your grandchildren are by saying they are too scared or embarrassed to tell their parents.”

Ommen says this scam preys on someone caught in a moment of vulnerability and surprise.

“That’s what scammers do,” Ommen said. “They use those emotions in order to get people to do things [they otherwise] would not do.”

Playing on these emotions, scammers may also use a romance scam to swindle people out of their hard-earned money.

“The romance scam is oftentimes where the scammers will use social media and they will create either a male or female identity, which is most often fictitious,” Ommen explained. “They use social media to try to develop relationships with individuals that are single, often older Iowans in order to create a facade of romantic interest.”

According to Ommen, after developing an online relationship with someone, the scammers will defraud individuals of “thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

The Iowa Fraud Fighters website says oftentimes this money is coerced from victims under the guise of needing it for travel expenses to visit the victim or for hardships the perpetrators claim they’re experiencing.

Ommen says these scams can be exceptionally deceiving due to the amount of information scammers can find on individuals and the way a scammer can personalize the attack.

“They do their research on folks,” he said. “They’re going to get background information and create a lot of familiarity and figure out where people are and how they can attack the weaknesses. And folks that are alone are most often victimized in those types of scams.”

A seemingly emotionally driven scam Ommen sees are high-yield investment product scams.

According to Iowa Fraud Fighters, “These products are peddled by scammers claiming to have access to the world’s leading financial institutions or banks. The scammers promise high returns at little or no risk to you by enrolling you in an elite or secret investment venture, often called a prime bank investment.”

In a more complicated scam which Ommen calls a Pig Butchering Scam, tactics from the romantic and invest scams are combined.

“They use pictures and connection and friendly smiles to entice people to kind of lower their guard and then the discussion changes to an investment opportunity,” Ommen explained. “You know this very nice-looking man or woman who’s really successful then wants to share how they got rich. And they do that and then trick the Iowan into sending money.”

Ommen’s biggest piece of advice to Iowans is to double check everything. When they’re in a situation like a grandchild calling in need of money, a love interest asking for financial assistance, or someone encouraging them to make a large investment, they should slow down, take some time, and double check the facts. Iowans worried about being scammed can always check in with the Iowa Insurance Division or Iowa Fraud Fighters.

At the Stop the Scammers events like the one in Mt. Pleasant, the Iowa Fraud Fighter share the stories of Iowans who have fallen victim to scams in hopes of encouraging others to speak up anytime they think they may have been targeted or did fall for a scam. According to Ommen it can be exceptionally hard for people to admit because of the shame that comes with being fooled in such intimate ways.

In one of these testimonial videos a gentleman admitted after he was scammed he felt humiliated and ashamed.

“That is a problem not just with reporting, but also it's a problem with providing consumer education, because people that have been scammed are kind of embarrassed, and they don't want to talk about it,” Ommen said. “But if you don't talk about it, unfortunately, you're leaving your neighbor in the position of having to learn on their own.”

With scammers getting better at what they do as technology and artificial intelligence evolve, Ommen says one of the best ways to help prevent, protect, and come back from scams is to still speak up and report.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com