SOUTH MILWAUKEE, Wis. — Last year, consumers lost $8.8 billion to fraud scams across the country, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC said those scams are impacting Wisconsinites too.
The FTC and several other state and local agencies, including fraud prevention experts, were in South Milwaukee Tuesday helping prepare neighbors for potential fraud and scams.
"It's scary and people just need to be more cautious," Brian Gaber said.
"It's happening, oh yeah," Kenneth Kieck echoed.
Gaber and Kieck were two of the few dozen Milwaukeeans at South Milwaukee's City Hall Tuesday learning about the state's most popular fraud and theft trends.
"I wanna make sure people have the tools they need to prevent themselves from becoming the next victim," U.S. Congressman Brian Steil said.
Steil spearheaded Tuesday's event. He said his office gets calls daily from Wisconsinites who have fallen victim.
"We hear a lot of scams involving Medicare, social security, they're often looking to find somebody who gets nervous that they missed a deadline," Steil explained.
The FTC said schemes involving social security theft, identity theft, fake lottery and sweepstakes winners, romance scams, and even utility scams are all happening in the Badger State.
Nationally, the FTC said fraud consumer reports have been on the rise since the pandemic started.
"The best advice we tell folks is hang up. Don't provide any personal information. We're not going to contact you and demand your personal information and your money," Taylor Hughes, with IRS Criminal Investigations, said.
Experts said never give out your social security number and never buy gift cards for someone who contacted you out of the blue. If you meet someone online, use Google Images to reverse search to see if that person is real. Lastly, if you didn't enter a lottery or sweepstakes, you're not going to be the winner.
"It's a lot of stuff you wouldn't normally have," Gaber said.
Several neighbors we talked to said they feel better prepared to deal with potential cyber criminals moving forward.
"I'll be more attentive. Showed me how easily they could empty your savings or checking account," Kieck said.
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