Our program for last Wednesday featured Mike Burke, a seven-year veteran of SHAZAM. He has over thirty years of experience in retail loss prevention, criminal justice education, law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security. He started off talking about card and check theft. He told us to beware of actual physical theft of cards and checks when we go to the gym in the morning and leave those items in a locker. Just covering the billfold with a sweatshirt or pants is not good enough. The locker needs to be locked. The bad guys know they have 30-45 minutes to go through lockers and steal billfolds and they immediately will go to the store and buy gift cards. Purses or billfolds that are left in cars in plain sight is also a bad move. Purses and billfolds should be hidden under the seat or in the glove box.

In grocery stores a common tactic is where two guys go into the store, and one of them rides in a handicapped cart. He will ask a woman whose purse is sitting in the cart to get something off the shelf that he cannot reach, and while she is helping him, the accomplice walks up to her cart and takes the billfold out of her purse or takes the whole purse.

Another common practice these days is stealing checks we’ve written from the mail. If a ball point pen is used, the fraudsters can wash the check and change the amount and payee, then fraudulently endorse the check. He recommended using a black gel point pen to make out checks. The gel is better absorbed into the paper of the check and is much more difficult to wash.

Since COVID we have experienced a huge uptick in romance scams. The isolation drove many to begin using the internet to meet someone. The scammers build up as much confidence in the victim as they can telling how much they love them. They give the victim a lot of attention for three to four months and then ask to borrow money or invest money in a “sure thing” investment. In 2019 the average amount lost was a little over $8000. Since COVID the average lost has risen to just over $20,000. He gave us some red flags to look for regarding these types of scams which target widows and widowers. We need to ask the victim if they have ever met the scammer in person. If they say no, but we’ve been dating for 4-6 months, and they love me. They are probably under the “ether influence” and are not thinking logically. They don’t think we are trying to save them the money, but that we are trying to break them up. Recently, the average loss for victims over 60 was $42,800. He gave us a website to use for these situations – www.tineye.com. If the victim has a picture of the person he or she has been “dating,” you can use this picture to do a reverse image lookup on that site. You will most likely find them on this website if the picture has been used before in a scam.

Mr. Burke also covered skimming at ATM’s and fuel dispensers. We need to always make sure the card flows smoothly into and out of the slot. If it doesn’t, we need to report it to the financial institution. We also need to check the speaker for a camera recording us entering the PIN number. He recommended always covering our hand when entering the PIN number.

Finally, Mr. Burke encouraged us to contact him with any questions either by email at mburke@shazam.net or calling his cell phone number at 515-570-4864.