As Tom Stovall began a presentation Wednesday in Dubuque, his wife, Linda, excitedly told him that she received a message about winning a trip and needed to provide their bank account number to access it.
The Stovalls, of Dubuque, gave the fake example of how people could end up being scammed while volunteering as presenters at the first stop of AARP Iowa’s Fraud Watch Tour.
“That happens thousands of millions of times a day, and unfortunately, a lot of people fall for it,” Tom Stovall said. “The big thing to remember: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
The series of free Fraud Watch Tour events, meant to help people learn to recognize and avoid scams, will be held in 12 Iowa communities throughout September. The Dubuque event took place at Keystone Area Education Agency, with about 40 people in attendance.
Al Perales, an investigator with the Consumer Protection Division of the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, said scammers like to target older people in part because so many of them are retired, meaning they are available to answer the phone and have money stored away.
“You’ve worked hard all your lives, and a scammer wants nothing more than to get their hands on the money you’ve worked hard for,” he told attendees. “Another reason I believe they target older Iowans is because you’re ‘Iowa nice.’ And that’s good — that’s a good attribute to have — but they take advantage of that.”
Perales and the Stovalls…
