NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)— New concerns about scams and cyber crimes that target senior citizens. The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of New Orleans is working to make seniors aware of the crimes.
Retired nurse Barbara Grier explained, “I got a notification from Amazon saying that I owe $1,000.00 because I purchased a computer which I did not, and they leave a telephone number for you to call. I don’t call that number. I call Amazon, and Amazon said it’s a scam.”
Grier was not a victim of this particular scam, but she is aware that scammers are on the prowl, and she’s been victimized before. That’s one reason that the Easter District of the U.S. Attorney’s office sounding the alarm that thieves are hoping to victimize seniors, by snail mail, phones, and emails on your computers.
“The theme throughout all these different methods is that the criminals are looking for more and more information to connect the dots. To more easily identify who the person they’re trying to victimizes” said Duane A. Evans, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Evans also stated that seniors are more often prayed on because of their living situation, and the criminals will do some homework on their victims,”The criminals have done their research, and they can identify individuals that are isolated, more often than not, or as a retiree, they own their home you already own your home. That may mean that you have money or you have a stable retirement in place so you have access to money.”
The U.S. Attorney’s office is part of a scam prevention event open to the public, Thursday night at Poydras Home and Grier spoke plainly about why she has a heightened awareness about scams.
“When you’re on a fixed income, you can’t let your guard down because my money is geared toward certain things, and I can’t have anyone scam me out of my money,” said Grier.
That senior cyber scam event is Thursday at 6pm at Poydras Home, 5354 Magazine St. It is open to the public and caregivers are invited to attend.