Awareness is key to avoiding scams

Last week, AARP Idaho held a town hall meeting with Brett DeLange of the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division. A summary of the meeting was in last Thursday’s paper.

One key takeaway was Mr. DeLange reminding consumers that if you don’t recognize a phone number, you shouldn’t answer the call. While that suggestion works well for individuals it doesn’t work for small business owners.

I receive calls weekly from small business owners frustrated by the number of fraudulent calls they receive. They say they aren’t able to simply ignore calls because the call might be an important customer or prospect calling for a legitimate business reason.

Which brings us to the other important key takeaway from the meeting: The best defense against these scammers is awareness.

For small business owners, this is important because research has shown that half of “attacks” on businesses are malicious intent while the other half are caused by human or computer error. That means employees (along with business owners) need to be educated on these scams in order to protect the company.

The top complaint the Attorney General’s office deals with from consumers/businesses are impostor calls. These calls involve a person who pretends to be someone else in order to deceive others, especially for fraudulent gain.

Case in point: A small business in Hayden received a call from an “IRS agent.” The caller claimed the business owed back taxes of $2,187 and that the money needed to be wired immediately or the company would be shut down. The timing was unfortunate for the business because the owner was out of town and unreachable, so the employee answering the call needed to make a quick decision.

Not realizing the call was a scam, the employee (who was a signatory on the bank account) dutifully went to the bank and transacted the wire as instructed. It wasn’t until a few days later after the owner returned that the error was discovered, but by then the money was gone.

Bottom line: Had the employee known that this was a scam she could have avoided it. She is understandably upset because the caller convinced her the business would be shut down unless she complied.