Wapello County no stranger to scams

Mar. 1—OTTUMWA — Wapello County Sheriff Don Phillips receives a call from someone concerned about being scammed at least once a week. It might be one scam this week, something else next week.

"It's usually a call after a call," he said. "We'll get a call after money is already sent."

Phillips is like most law enforcement authorities hoping to curb scam opportunities, which typically affect senior citizens over other age demographics. It's also why the Iowa Fraud Fighters is continuing its tour in Ottumwa on Monday.

Iowa Fraud Fighters, a group made up of officials from the Iowa Department of Insurance and Financial Services, the Iowa Attorney General's Office and the Iowa branch of AARP, started a tour of communities to inform citizens of various prevention tips and how to avoid scams.

The "Stop the Scammers" visit to Bridge View Center begins at 8:30 a.m., and those interested in attending can register through www.iowafraudfighters.gov.

Various scams have made headlines in the state recently, but Phillips told the story of an arrest he made a couple weeks ago that ended up being widespread and involved federal authorities.

"A couple weeks ago, we made an arrest, as two people in New York state scammed one of our area farmers out of $1 million," he said. "We didn't report it to the media because it was part of a bigger network that included the Department of Homeland Security. It was much bigger than here locally."

Phillips said the scam was known as "pig butchering," which usually starts as a simple text message or social media post to get the would-be victim's attention, and then transforms the conversation into a financial aspect in which an opportunity is presented to send money, which can, at times, cause financial ruin.

In this case, Phillips said, it started with an Instagram post of someone posing as a Russian model. The scammers ended up being two Chinese nationals, one who was in the country on asylum, who collected money over three different occasions.

Scams happen everywhere and in various forms.

A senior citizen in Iowa City narrowly avoided being scammed when she refused to receive $2 million in exchange for a $150 gift card.

"If it's too good to be true, it should be a red flag," Phillips said. "It's an ongoing thing. What you really need to avoid them is have a rambunctious law enforcement officer on the other end of things. Sometimes you get lucky and that happens."

Phillips has seen incidents of people posing as family members who have traveled to another country, are in trouble and need cash.

"It's just a bad deal," Phillips said. "But we're getting calls almost weekly."

— Chad Drury can be reached at cdrury@ottumwacourier.com, and on Twitter @ChadDrury