Authorities warn of phone scams

Sheriff’s office says victims often have no recourse

The Santa Fe County Sheriff ’s Office sent out a warning in April: Fraudsters had scammed three elderly residents out of a total of nearly $50,000.

Two weeks ago, the New Mexico attorney general put out an alert: Scammers posing as Publishers Clearing House employees were offering a fake lottery windfall to people who would send in a little cash upfront. Other callers, the attorney general warned, were posing as aggressive IRS agents, demanding payment for back taxes.

The IRS is far more likely to mail a letter seeking back taxes than than to make a phone call, the attorney general said.

On Monday, a warning came from the state Administrative Office of the Courts: Callers pretending to represent the court system were threatening to arrest New Mexicans unless they paid a fine for missing jury duty.

These are just the latest in a wave of phone scams that have been plaguing residents of Santa Fe County. And there’s usually no recourse for people

who fall prey to such schemes, said Juan Ríos, a spokesman for the county sheriff’s office.

“Honestly, those crimes, they don’t rank high on our priority list,” Ríos said. “… There’s really not much we can do except for notifying the public that the scam is occurring. … Once it’s done, it’s done.”

Here’s the problem: Often, phone scammers are calling from an unknown location, even a site overseas, he said. “Once the money is gone, it’s gone.”

Ríos wasn’t certain if the sheriff’s office has seen an uptick in phone scams reported to the department. Rather, he said, it is an ongoing problem that seems to hit in spurts.

“We can’t really speak as to why,” he said, “but you will see that there are times of the year where it’s more prevalent, for example, around tax time.”

Ríos’ advice to those who receive suspicious calls, such as an offer of prize money that seems too good to be true, a caller claiming to be law enforcement or a government official seeking cash: Hang up the phone.

The sheriff ’s office has fielded a range of fraud complaints:

Once, Ríos said, scammers called a couple and told them their grandson was in jail and needed money for bail. The couple sent money before discovering that the grandson had never been jailed.

Someone called a 74-yearold woman and pretended they wanted to help her make money by renting out her time share. She paid nearly $30,000 in fees and then learned from a property management company overseeing the time share that the transaction was a scam.

Just recently, a 90-year-old woman told the sheriff ’s office she had received a scam call from fake IRS agents, Ríos said. How did she spot the ruse? Less than a decade ago, he said, the woman lost $6,000 in a similar scam.

Many of the cases he’s heard about have involved elderly victims, Ríos said, speculating the older generation is more trusting of people in authority — or people claiming to be.

Gino Rinaldi, director of the city of Santa Fe’s Division of Senior Services, said he’s aware that phone scams often target older people, but he doesn’t hear about many instances.

“You’ll find there’s a lot of embarrassment,” he said, explaining why victims sometimes choose not to report this type of theft. “In some cases, they might not fully understand what just happened because the scammers are really, really good.”

Age isn’t the only reason seniors fall victim to phone scams, Rinaldi said. Many seniors have spent a lifetime trying to keep their finances spotless and are sensitive to the threat that their financial status could be damaged.

As it turns out, however, seniors aren’t the only people who get duped by fraud schemes.

According to the latest analysis from the Federal Trade Commission, roughly 18 percent of seniors who reported fraud — ranging from phone scams to identity theft — told the FTC they actually lost money.

In comparison, people half their age lost money almost twice as often.

Of the people age 20 to 29 who reported scam calls to the FTC, 40 percent of them had paid out.