New Britain police offer seniors tips to avoid scams

In the era of Internet scams, email schemes and cellphone fraud, the best defense is to be skeptical of deal that seems too good to be true, police told an audience of New Britain senior citizens last week.

“If they tell you you’ve won the lottery but you never bought a ticket, you know something’s wrong,” Sgt. Art Powers said at the annual Triad presentation on personal safety and crime prevention.

For the past several years, Powers has coached senior citizens on personal safety strategies through the city’s Triad program. Funded by local businesses and other donors, Triad is an initiative of the police department, senior center and community groups to help New Britain senior citizens feel safer on the streets.

About two dozen residents attended this year’s event, held at the senior center downtown.

Senior citizens can best protect themselves against car thieves, purse snatchers and other criminals by simply staying alert, Powers said.

“Be aware of your surroundings — we always talk about that,” Powers said. “When you walk out to your car, walk straight to it. Have your keys ready. If you’re paying attention to something else, someone can walk up behind you, grab your pocketbook or know you down.”

Even though some scams are widely known, victims — often elderly — still fall for them, Powers said. One of those scams he cited is the phone caller who masquerades as a kidnapper, claims to be holding a grandchild hostage and demands a quick wire transfer of money. Such callers warn the victim to tell nobody what’s happening and send the money immediately, counting on confusion and panic to cloud the victim’s judgment, Powers said.

Powers recalled how he was just outside police headquarters several years ago when someone told him of hearing an older woman talking loudly on her cellphone.

“This person says, ‘I think she’s being scammed.’ I walked over to her, asked if everything was OK — she said she was fine. I asked if anyone was bothering her on the phone, she said no,” Powers recalled.

“About 45 minutes later, I hear a call of a woman at CVS saying she’d been scammed. It was her. I asked her later, ‘You were talking to a police officer right outside police headquarters, but you didn’t say anything?’ She said the caller heard me talking to her and warned her not to tell me,” Powers said.

“If she had talked to me, she’d be $3,000 richer,” Power said. “Usually once the money is wired, it’s gone — it pretty much can’t be traced.”

At the breakfast session sponsored by the Duksa Funeral Home, Capt. Ben Murphy also gave seniors guidance on what to do in a potential mass shooting.

“Run, hide, fight,” Murphy said, listing the options in the best order. “If you can run, then run as long as your legs can carry you. If you can get out, get out. Running and getting away is your best option.”

“If you have to hide, do the best you can,” he said. “Barricade that door, lock that door.”

For someone is trapped in a building and unable to hide, the only choice is to fight the attacker, he said.

“You’d be surprised how much harm a stapler to the back of the head can do,” Murphy said.

Don Stacom can be reached at dstacom@ courant.com.