Seniors beware: The internet may seem like a communication and shopping playground, but bad guys are lurking everywhere, just waiting to swindle you.
That was the message Al Perales gave those who attended his presentation at the Burlington Public Library on Wednesday. Perales, an investigator in the Iowa Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division, has seen all types of scams and tracked down many thieves. He regularly speaks to groups around the state to warn of common scams and answer questions.
Perales advised his audience to stop and think before acting if confronted with an offer to buy a product or service or make a donation — whether online, on the phone, or answering the front door.
“Scammers will try to find ways to connect with you,” he said. “They’re focused on everyone in this room. We live in a scam culture.”
Perales offered anecdotes about Iowans cheated out of money through online and telephone fraud: the Grinnell man who took a fraudulent loan to get his grandson out of jail; the DeWitt woman who believed a telephone call telling her she’d won $5.5M — “and a white Mercedes Benz” — and was bilked out of $50,000.
“She thought she was going win that big prize,” Perales said.
Perales told of a woman from northwest Iowa who was involved in a romance scam.
“The romance scam is one of the evilest scams out there,” he said. “It deals with love, and hope, and the future, and the scammer turns it into something very, very ugly.”
The woman lost a million dollars…
