Stephanie Benitez has worked 20 years for the FBI. She specializes in bank robbery, crimes against children, pubic corruption, the drone program, coordination with the BAU team (profiler- human behavior patterns) and mass causality- victim response team. Currently, she is working out of the Boulder Sheriff's Office.
Stephanie offered a look into the crime trends in Boulder County. One of her observations was the uptick of crimes since the legalization of marijuana. Additionally, fraud cases have skyrocketing, especially during the pandemic. Elder exploitation is on the rise and the victim is not your stereotypical individual. A recent study reveled the top traits of a typical victim: "Self reliant in decision making, optistimic, above average in financial knowledge, above average income, college educated, a recent health or financial setback and open to listening to new ideas or sales strategies." Over 13% of older Americans will become victims of financial fraud.
The popular current scams are, romance scams, government scams (trying to get access to your computer), virtual kidnapping (phone call reporting they have kidnapped your family member), grandson in jail scam and needs bail money, and sadly scams are already happening with the Marshall Fire. Scam artists prey on our vulnerabilities, using strategies such as Scarcity ("this is last one"), Reciprocity ("I will give you this if….") and Affinity fraud (targeting organizations), Phantom stories, (we all want to believe these sad stories). Another popular scam is coming to your home, offering home repairs and overcharging, or not doing the work at all.
What can you do? Don't be reluctant to say NO or hang up the phone. You can also call and verify a service. Any legitimate company will respect a customer's caution, (and if they don't, another Red Flag!). "Say No, Go, Tell". Get involved: If you see something, tell someone. To learn more go to to the website: IC3.gov. If you fall victim to a fraud, please report it. If reported promptly, more support and assistance can happen. For example, your financial accounts can be frozen, but this needs to happen within 12 hours from the incident.
And Remember..
THE FBI IS NOT GOING TO CALL YOU !