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Foundation offers presentation on scam

Seminar in partnership with county attorney

Posted 5/15/21

Sun City West Foundation partnered with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office to present a free seminar focusing on trending scams.

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Foundation offers presentation on scam

Seminar in partnership with county attorney

Posted

Sun City West Foundation partnered with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office to present a free seminar focusing on trending scams.

The seminar is scheduled 9 a.m. Thursday, May 18 at the Foundation building, 14465 W. R.H. Johnson Blvd. The presenter will be Joan Campbell, Maricopa County Attorney’s Office community affairs coordinator.

Scammers use fear and intimidation to steal money and gather personal information by pretending to be government officials, health care organizations or family members in distress. Knowing not to click on email links, placing privacy controls on devices and monitoring accounts are a few helpful prevention tools.

Criminals are taking advantage of the coronavirus to develop new scams to get valuable information. In the last couple of weeks, fake vaccine surveys were emailed or sent via text message. The scam promises to provide recipients with a gift for participating in a survey in order to get their personal information. Fake vaccination cards, fake testing kits and getting people priority for the vaccine have been the newest scams. Another new text scam is one that pretends to be from the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division and this week Amazon delivery phone calls stating there is a fake charge or problem with a delivery.

During the May 18 presentation, the importance of education on the issues will be reviewed and taking a breath when confronted with a scam and sharing information with others will be stressed.

Other topics to be discussed include reviewing dollar amount of loses and which scams are trending; patterns and methods used to get people’s money, gift cards are one of the most common ways they ask for money; and prevention suggestions.

Included in this presentation will be short videos, including “virtual kidnappings.”  That is when someone receives a call telling them a loved one has been kidnapped and they are demanding a ransom.

Easy prevention suggestions include not using public WI-FI, have secure and private social media accounts and different passwords for accounts.

To reserve a seat, call the Sun City West Foundation office at 623-584-6851. A reservation is mandatory because of seating limitations due to COVID-19. Masks are required and social distancing will be observed. These events are open to any and all interested. 

Sun City West Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization serving the community since 1987 with community center facilities, including banquet and meeting rooms, as well as the ever popular Helping Hands service. 

Editor’s Note: Ms. Bertelsen is Sun City West Foundation Helping Hands manager.