Durango Herald photo illustration

Durango resident Kimberly Williams was reading this newspaper a couple of years ago when she came across a classified ad for a free motorcycle.

She became interested and sent an email to learn more. A man who claimed to be from California wrote back saying his son recently died, and he wanted to get rid of the motorcycle because it brought back too many memories.

He asked for $150 to ship the motorcycle from California to Durango, and Williams agreed to send the money via Western Union.

Feeling a little suspicious, she searched the Internet and quickly learned she had fallen for a scam.

“Usually I’m not a sucker for anything like that,” Williams said. “I felt kind of silly for believing something like that.”

Local law-enforcement officials receive calls “almost daily” from residents who have been solicited or fallen victim to scams, said Tom Cowing, investigator for the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office.

The scams originate from around the world and arrive by many mediums: phone, mail, email, classified ads, text messages, dating websites and more.

Scammers are searching for personal identifying information, such as bank-account numbers, credit-card numbers and Social Security numbers. Others want victims to wire money via Western Union or to purchase cash cards that can be redeemed at stores such as Walmart.

According to Get Cyber Safe, a Canadian website, about 156 million phishing emails are sent globally every day, of which about 16 million make it through filters, 8 million are opened, 800,000 links are clicked and 80,000 people fall victim.

Some scams are outdated and obvious, such as one purporting to be from a wealthy Nigerian family that wants to get a large sum of money out of the country and needs help.

Others are more sophisticated, including a text message that circulated earlier this year to hundreds of local residents saying their Pine River Valley Bank card starting with 4477 had been temporarily suspended. People who received the text message were asked to call a certain number, and if you did, scammers would try to extract credit-card and security code information.

“I do really think people are getting wise to the fact that there are people out there trying to cheat them out of their money,” Cowing said.

Not much can be done

With caller ID and digital trails, scams seem like they should be an easy crime to investigate. But the scammers are relentless, they operate overseas and they have a level of sophistication that can be difficult to unravel, said Burke Baldwin, investigator with the Durango Police Department.

Some scams operate like a pyramid scheme, where a middleman might be receiving a salary for purchasing game systems and sending them overseas. The middleman may have no idea he is part of an international scam, using illegal payment methods to obtain the goods, authorities said.

“Whenever we try to trace these back, we end up with multiple steps,” Baldwin said. “We think we’ve gone back to the actual suspect, and we find out they’re just another step in the process – somebody else who is an unwitting participant and is being scammed.”

Hundreds of workers are employed overseas in countries such as Nigeria who do nothing but make phone calls or send and receive emails in hopes of luring someone into a scam, Cowing said.

Tracing the money also can prove difficult, Cowing said.

“There are just more and more ways you can send money anonymously and collect that money anonymously,” he said.

Local law-enforcement agencies can work with federal investigators on large cases, but the FBI rarely becomes involved unless the scam exceeds a certain amount – for example $50,000, Baldwin said.

Earlier this year, hundreds of people who registered for the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic had their credit-card information stolen. The theft is considered a fraud, not a scam, but the ensuing investigation demonstrates the challenges local law officers face when trying to enlist help from other jurisdictions.

Some of the credit cards were used at a Miami Walmart. When investigators asked Miami police to obtain surveillance footage for a $300 fraudulent purchase, they got no response, said Durango police Sgt. Deck Shaline.

Even if Miami authorities had cooperated, the surveillance footage likely wouldn’t have revealed much. And even if it did, it would be entirely possible the person using the credit-card information was an unwitting participant in a scam to use illegal funds to buy game systems and ship them overseas for resale, Shaline said.

Preventive medicine the key

The best defense is vigilance, authorities say.

The old adage applies: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

“Never jump into anything too quickly,” Cowing said. “Always validate what that person is saying.”

Said Shaline: “If you feel like something is wrong, it probably is.”

If someone has doubts about the legitimacy of a deal, they are encouraged to do a quick Internet search or call the police department before proceeding.

“If you talk to us after you’re out the money, there is nothing we can do to get your money back,” Baldwin said.

Residents should be wary of people who call and ask for personal identifying information, Cowing said. Banks and credit-card companies aren’t going to ask customers for security codes or account information, Cowing said, because they already have that information.

“Some people feel that sense of urgency, they feel like this is legitimate, and they do it,” Cowing said. “Once you pull that trigger, it’s too late.”

International lotteries don’t exist and are illegal, he said.

“If it takes giving money to win money, it’s inevitably a scam,” Cowing said. “You can’t get something for nothing.”

Some scam artists focus exclusively on elderly residents, not because they’re gullible but because they aren’t as knowledgeable about modern tactics, Cowing said.

People who aren’t tech savvy and think they might have a computer virus are more likely to allow a nefarious third party to remotely control their computer and steal files.

It is always a good idea to keep an eye on credit cards and bank statements.

Restaurant patrons may want to walk their card to a cash register instead of letting the wait staff handle the card, Cowing said. Some crooks have been known to use hand-held scanners to copy credit-card information and sell it, he said.

“That has happened quite a bit,” he said. “It has happened in Durango.”

Embarrassing, but good to report

Those who have fallen victim to a scam often feel embarrassed. They may wait several months to report the crime, but doing so only gives the scammers more time to keep the scam alive and cover their tracks, Cowing said.

In some circumstances, if reported immediately, it is possible to stop a Western Union transaction or close a credit card or bank account before any harm is done, he said.

Cowing said he tries to keep Western Union clerks informed of the current scams so they can recognize a potential victim. He recalled one case in which a clerk refused to allow a woman to send money to Canada to bail her grandson out of jail.

“They literally said ‘No, we’re not going to send this. This is bogus. Please understand your grandson is not in jail in Canada. Please call him before you take any further action,’” Cowing said.

Cowing also likes to stay informed about the latest scams and tries to find out where the money is going. More often than not, the money is going to Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Jamaica, Canada and the Dominican Republic.

“Everyone’s getting in on the action,” he said. “They’re constantly evolving. I’m just amazed.”

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Meet the scams

The granny scam: Someone purporting to be a Canadian law-enforcement officer calls an elderly person to say a grandson is in jail for fishing without a license or for having drugs in a car. The grandma is asked not to call the parents, at the grandson’s request, because it is embarrassing to the grandson. The grandma is asked to go to Western Union to send money for bail. Once the grandma does so, the scammer asks for more money, citing various reasons, for example, a fee for a lawyer or other bogus charge. “A lot of times, people will actually fall for it,” said Tom Cowing, investigator with the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office.
International lottery scam: A random call or something in the mail saying you’ve won a cash bonanza. The victim is asked to send a certain amount of money through Western Union to receive the prize. “Of course, they always add on fees and keep bleeding that victim dry,” Cowing said. One local man was duped into believing he won $10 million. He was asked to purchase prepaid cards and wire money as part of the process to claim the prize. He was suckered out of $30,000, Cowing said. They called him one last time to say, “We have your money, it’s going to be delivered by U.S. Marshals in the back of a brand-new Honda. They had him send $1,500 for security fees. “It’s totally ridiculous to think that U.S. Marshals would facilitate something like that and provide security, but this man fell for it,” Cowing said. He traced the scam to Jamaica, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Phone scams: Someone calls from a company, for example Dell, who says they have detected a problem with your computer and it needs to be looked into immediately. The person is asked to allow the caller to access the computer remotely, and while that is occurring, the scammer makes a clone of the computer and passwords.
Text messaging scams: Text messages were sent to several hundred residents in the area earlier this year saying their accounts at Pine River Valley Bank had been temporarily suspended. People were advised to call a number, and when they did, the scammer asked for account numbers or Social Security numbers in an effort to drain the accounts.
Nigerian scams: Someone claiming to be a wealthy Nigerian says he has inherited a large sum of money and offers to give you some of it in exchange for using your bank account to transfer the money out of his country. Once scammers have your account information, they drain it. “I haven’t heard of anybody falling for that lately, it’s such an old scam, but every once in a while you find somebody who’s motivated by greed or just gullible, and it happens,” Cowing said.
Dating scam: Scammers will Photoshop a picture of a male or female model, put it on a dating website and become friends with the victim. After establishing a relationship, they’ll ask for money. “They’re pretty persistent, these people are pretty despicable,” Cowing said. “Even when they’re busted by law enforcement, they will keep calling or keep their contact with the victim and still attempt to get money from them.”
Dating scam variant: A man or woman meets someone online who has a fake profile and picture. They correspond and talk on the phone. The scammer convinces the victim that he or she is unable to receive items purchased online because he or she lives in a foreign country such as Nigeria. The scammer then convinces the victim to receive items purchased online and send them to the person in a foreign country. But the scammer uses stolen credit-card numbers to purchase the items.
Rental scam: Someone wants to rent an apartment or home. The victim sees an ad in the paper. Out-of-state residents who are looking to move here can be convinced to wire a deposit and first month’s rent without seeing the site. When they arrive, the victim finds that the place doesn’t exist.