Douglas County Sheriff Jay Armbrister will give a presentation this week to help folks learn how to avoid phone and online scams that can be devastating.
The event is set for 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 18 in the Lawrence Public Library auditorium, 707 Vermont St.
Many scams circulate regularly, attempting to steal money from people. Scams often target older people, but anyone could be susceptible. Armbrister said in a news release that these cases are heartbreaking to work, and the scams have “become much more sophisticated in recent years.”
We’ve written about scams in which predators pose as law enforcement and tell the person they’re calling that they missed jury duty and have to pay a fine; ask people to download computer programs and then hack their bank accounts; or try to convince family members of KU students that their student has been arrested and needs money to bond out of jail.
“There are several red flags with requests to purchase gift cards or bitcoin, for example,” Armbrister said in the release. “A law enforcement officer will never ask you to pay money to immediately resolve a legal situation, so we always advise people to end the call and call our office number themselves to verify if it was a legitimate contact. We appreciate getting to talk about prevention tactics and ways to help people in our community.”
The presentation is free to attend, but reservations are recommended. Sign up at this link.
Visit this link and click the green bookmark icon to add this event to your Google, Apple, Outlook or other calendar.
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This post is by the Lawrence Times news team.
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