Monroe Police Detective Kwasic Heckard will discuss techniques that seniors can protect themselves from current scams, home burglaries to cybercrimes. Common scams aimed at older adults include: Government impersonator scams, such as someone posing as a Medicare representative asking for account information. Fake prizes, sweepstakes, the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, and lottery scams, in which you are asked to pay money or provide account information to claim winnings.

Some other common scams are computer or tech scams, where a scammer will reach out by phone or by email and indicate that there is a virus that has been detected on the senior’s computer, to get access to the senior’s personal information that may be maintained on their PC. Or a demand for payment for that antivirus scammer to clean the viruses off that senior’s computer.

Discussion: What steps can seniors and families take to prevent elder fraud by scammers?