While major crime may seemingly be going down, pickpockets, hackers and attackers are getting smarter, focusing on more local and specific scams to rob people of their money, possessions and even identities.
Earlier in the year, County Executive Ed Mangano stated that there was a 9.5 percent decrease countywide in major crime across all precincts in 2014. According to the Nassau County Police Department (NCPD), there has been a 53 percent decrease in murders, a 36 percent reduction in robbery crimes and a 32 percent reduction in burglary crimes.
However, many residents have fallen victims to the all too popular and unpredictable crime culprit: scams. From telephone and technology scams to credit card and diversion scams, Long Islanders have found it difficult to trust anyone these days.
Commander Bob Fullam from the Farmingdale VFW explained that scams happen all of the time and anyone can become victims of them. “I encounter email scams often. One was an email that said I won the lottery, and the emailer asked for my personal information. Luckily, I knew it was a scam.”
Another senior resident, who chose not to be named, also recognized a scam via email, but she came to the realization that it wasn’t real after evaluating what it said. She said, “I got an unusual email from my friend, who travels often, saying she lost her money and credit card in India, and she needed money to get back home. I was scared, and when I called her, she didn’t respond…I realized it wasn’t real when I thought about it. She called me back later that day.”
Stuart Schaeffer, head of reference at the Farmingdale Public Library, provided a few resources for seniors to avoid scams. He suggested www.StopSeniorScams.org, and an article titlted “Beware of These 10 Common Senior Scam Tricks” on the site www.scambusters.org. The library also has a book on senior scams called Outsmarting the Scam Artists: How to Protect Yourself From the Most Clever Cons.
The FBI says that those 60 and over, especially women living alone, are often targets of people selling fake products and services by telephone.And the United States Senate Special
Committee on Aging says that financial exploitation of older Americans costs seniors an estimated $2.9 billion in 2010. Nassau County Acting District Attorney Madeline Singas said financial crimes and scams targeting the elderly have become more specialized, and as a result, so are the ways in which they are being handled.
“We have financial investigators in our office and we have ADAs who are just dedicated to the financial crimes, because they know everything about mortgages and those kinds of scams. It’s impossible to get up to speed on that unless you’re specialized. The same way we go to doctors who specialize, we try to do the same thing in law enforcement…It’s a recognition that we have to step up our game, because the tools that we had before are not the same tools we need to combat crime [today].”
According to Detective Vincent Garcia of the NCPD, scams that target women are not a prevalent crime, as there are no patterns and it is very arbitrary.
“We don’t have an increase in pedestrian robberies,” he said. “Don’t become a target. When you’re out in public and if you’re carrying a bag clutch it under your arm.”
Garcia also added that parking under a streetlight, keeping your keys in your hand and simply being aware of your general surroundings are personal safety tips that can be applied to everyone.
“Instinct tells you when something isn’t right. So if you are walking out of a store and would feel safer being escorted to your car, ask the manager or an employee to accompany you,” said Garcia.
Learn more about scams affecting Long Islanders on page 4A.
