Police co-host forum on avoiding scams
When police got a call from a Glendale woman’s grandson in Texas asking them to check on her one day in May, officers went to her home, but she wasn’t there.
Concerned, dispatchers learned what kind of car she drove and asked police to keep an eye out for her. When officers spotted her car, they stopped her to make sure she was OK.
As it turned out, the caller claiming to be the woman’s grandson was really a foreign scammer, and when police stopped the woman, she was on her way to the post office to mail a $10,000 check because the man had told her she owed taxes after winning the lottery.
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Glendale Police Det. Matthew Zakarian told this story to an audience of more than 100 seniors on Tuesday at an educational forum on outsmarting scammers, co-hosted by Glendale police and the nonprofit Wise & Healthy Aging.
“If it sounds too good to be true, then it is,” speaker Belle Chen, a prosecutor for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, told the crowd.
At the top of their list of tips for residents: monitor your credit score and check your bank statements.
Residents should also avoid mailing checks, which can be fished out of mailboxes overnight, and instead opt to use their bank’s bill pay service, Zakarian said. If convenient, he added, residents may consider signing up for a service that blocks access to their credit report.
The forum was funded by a $40,000 grant to Wise & Healthy Aging from the AARP Foundation for a year’s worth of education and outreach programs on scam prevention, according to Sarah Barnard, the manager of the nonprofit’s elder abuse prevention program.
Longtime Glendale resident Annelies Kischkel, 74, found the speakers informative, and while she’s always been vigilant about scams, she plans to be more careful moving forward — especially when it comes to her mail.
Retired fraud investigator Brenda Fink, 66, said she attended the forum to find out about new scams and current trends.
One she hadn’t heard about, she said, was fraudsters accusing people in parking lots of clipping their cars, and then politely offering to settle the incident without police or insurance companies.
“You should say, ‘Let’s call the police, I need a police report for my insurance,’” Chen said. “If it’s a scam, they’re just like cockroaches — they’re going to run.”
Chen also mentioned “distraction burglaries,” where pairs or teams of people will use a ruse to distract a homeowner, while their accomplices go off and look for jewelry, cash or small electronics.
“Slam the door in their face and lock it,” Chen said.
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Alene Tchekmedyian, alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com
Twitter: @atchek
