It may be an email, a text message or an urgent caller on the phone asking for money. The scammer may claim to be a law enforcement officer, the federal Internal Revenue Service, tech support or a trusted company or business. They may tell you you’ve won the sweepstakes or claim there is a warrant out for your arrest.
Whatever the scheme may be, there is an onslaught of scams that everyday people are losing thousands of dollars to, Summit County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons said. Since the start of this year, the Summit County Sheriff’s Office has taken 80 reports of fraud, including online and phone schemes, where someone had reported a monetary loss.
“Like everything that’s changed over the years, it’s technology that has really changed fraud schemes,” FitzSimons said. “Fraud schemes used to take place when someone knocked on the door. Now they’re taking place on phones, on computers — through technology.”
Scammers stole $188 million from more than 11,000 victims in Colorado in 2023, according to the latest report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, often referred to as IC3.
Colorado ranks 7th in the nation for the most complaints per capita, the FBI report states. Compared to the previous year, reported losses in the Centennial State increased by $9 million in 2023.
“Sadly, we routinely see victims from all walks of life whose livelihoods and life savings have been wiped out by scammers,” FBI Denver Special Agent in Charge Mark Michalek said in a statement. “Criminals continue to develop new tricks to defraud people, so think twice before clicking on a link and report suspicious activity to law enforcement.”
In 2023, the Internet Crime Complaint Center received more than 880,000 complaints nationwide, with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion, according to the FBI report. From 2022 to 2023, there was a 10% increase in complaints and a 22% increase in reported losses from internet crime in the U.S., the report states.
Already this year, the cumulative amount of money people have lost money to fraud schemes in Summit County totals in the tens of thousands of dollars, FitzSimons said. And, more often than not, that’s money that people aren’t getting back.
“Unfortunately with these losses, (the scammers) are in other countries, not in a jurisdiction in which we can investigate,” FitzSimons said. “Usually, by the time someone has fallen for these frauds, there’s no way to recover these funds.”
While the Summit County Sheriff’s Office will do its best to investigate reports of fraud where there has been a monetary loss, FitzSimons said even more people report fraud schemes or scams that didn’t result in monetary losses.
The Sheriff’s Office refers those that didn’t lose money to but experienced a fraud scheme to file a complaint with StopFraudColorado.gov and IC3.gov. FitzSimons said these websites are also great websites where people can arm themselves with knowledge about common fraud schemes and how to avoid falling victim to a scam.
In general, everyone should be suspicious of any email, text or phone message that offers something that seems too good to be true, FitzSimons said. This could include “get rich quick” scams or romance scams where someone asks for money after developing a trusted online relationship.
“There’s that old adage — if something seems too good to be true, it probably is,” FitzSimons said.
Scammers often will attempt to create a sense of urgency, especially in schemes that happen over the phone, FitzSimons said. There are family emergency scams, where someone claims that a relative is in legal trouble or physical danger and asks for money, and government imposter schemes, where fraudsters pretend to work for the government and use false authority to trick people out of their money.
Noting recent scams where fraudsters have attempted to imitate local law enforcement officers and court officials, FitzSimons said those entities will never call someone to tell them there is a warrant out for their arrest or demand payment over the phone.
Anytime someone is asking for money over the phone or online, people should take a step back from the situation to reflect, the sheriff said.
“People can create time and distance,” FitzSimons said. “A good thing is to get the name and phone number and tell whoever is calling you will call back. Get a friend or confidant. Build some time and space.”
In the case that a potential scammer is reporting a family emergency, call the person they said was in trouble, FitzSimons said. Or, if in doubt, call the Summit County nonemergency dispatch number at 970-668-8600 and ask to talk to a deputy, he said.
Consumer education is the best weapon in the fight against fraud, according to the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. FitzSimons said that everyone should read up on the types of scams out there so that they don’t fall victim to them.
“We can’t get this information out there enough,” FitzSimons said. “We talk about it all the time, and every day I’m reading about this. There are people who are just not hearing it, or just can’t help but click that link. There’s that impulse to click. Pause before you click, right?”