Public-safety forum warns residents about rise in phone, online scams affecting seniors and youth
Protecting oneself from the scammers, thieves and bullies whose predatory patterns have only proliferated in the Digital Age seems daunting, but at a public forum on May 19 experts offered practical advice for building strong lines of defense online and at home.
Presented by the city of La Cañada Flintridge and its Public Safety Commission, the forum exposed residents to crime trends seen in the local community and discussed how criminals are using technology to aid them in particular in crimes against seniors and youth.
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Speakers shared insight into how default cellphone settings that track a user’s location and the innocent sharing of information about a person’s whereabouts on social media can be seen and used by strangers.
One phone app, for example, lets a user see people who’ve logged in at a location near them and read posts they’ve written by simply holding out their device in that general direction.
“The biggest thing we can do is prevention — not giving out information about ourselves,” said Deputy Eric Matejka with the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station, who focused his talk on the latest phone and Internet scams to hit the area.
He said fraudsters typically assume a false mantle of authority, representing themselves as police officers or agents with the FBI or IRS, to get people to send payments through prepaid debit cards, such as Green Dot or MoneyPak, to make an imminent threat go away.
Another trend on the rise in recent years involves actors pretending to be a family member in trouble who needs money right away. These people tend to elicit information in the course of their phone call, and then use it to further legitimize their scam (“Yes, Grandma, this is Katie. Please help me.”)
Though the sheriff’s deputy spoke at length on countless different schemes, scams and identity theft tactics, his advice boiled down to a few simple points.
“There’s two things I want you guys to take away — hang up on these people, and (know) your home is your castle, so keep it safe,” Matejka advised, adding that the IRS or Microsoft is highly unlikely to call with a demand for payment.
In a special segment on cyberbullying, sponsored by the city’s Youth Council, speakers discussed the easy allure of making anonymous comments online or sending embarrassing photos or videos of friends or classmates to large groups of people with the click of a button.
Will Moffitt, chairman of the LCF Community Prevention Council, an advocacy and family resource group that aims to combat troubling youth trends, discussed how young people are often selected and “groomed” by adult predators into accepting inappropriate contact and behaviors.
“Technology is really hard to keep up with. It changes every single day and, more than the rest of us, our kids are usually at the forefront of it,” Moffitt said. “The problem is kids, just like the rest of us, are preyed on through the Internet. We need to take time to protect our kids and ourselves.”
While not every young person has been directly involved in cyberbullying, some studies indicate 100% of kids ages 12 to 17 have witnessed the act directly. Youth Council member and La Cañada High senior Mary Morley-Montes personally attested to that, sharing how she used an anonymous Q&A web platform in middle school where online shaming was common.
“I wasn’t always the victim — I have been the bully,” she confessed, urging her peers to stand up and speak out about such instances. “Once you post something on the Internet it’s out there. And there’s no way you can get it back.”
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For information on cyber crimes, visit the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department website at lasd.org
To learn more about cyberbullying and keeping kids safe, visit the La Cañada Flintridge Community Prevention Council at lcfcpc.com
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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com
Twitter: @SaraCardine
