by Laura Handke

“Hello,” greeted the voice on the other end of a call that rang through to a rural northeast Kansas farmhouse. The caller id showed “Verizon,” the cellular company where the family held their phone coverage. The foreign caller wasted no time explaining the dire situation after verifying the identity of the person she was speaking to. 

“I am calling to confirm that you have ordered two iPhone 15 cellular phones and two Apple Watch Ultra 2 GPS Plus cellular watches,” the voice asked. The answer was a fast “no” from the farm kitchen. 

“There’s been a mistake, and I’ll need to reroute the package to your home. The devices are currently en route to Pennsylvania. I’ll need your address,” the caller responded and provided a direct callback number for when the devices arrived.

TIPS TO AVOID BEING SCAMMED: A rural bank in northeast Kansas provides this list of tips on the back of its bank envelopes to help its customers protect themselves from scams. (Laura Handke)

After providing their rural Everest address, three watches, but no phones, arrived three days later. One package was delivered via UPS, the other by FedEx. The couple agreed that the situation was odd.

Rapid instructions, red flags

“Within half an hour of the packages being delivered, we got a call back telling us that a prepaid shipping label would be provided to ship the watches to New York, where the fraud investigation was being handled. She would then ship the watches to the Verizon return center in Texas,” the couple, who wish to remain anonymous, share. “She told us that they already had the people in Pennsylvania identified and were in the process of bringing felony charges against them.” 

The prepaid shipping label would provide another red flag: both the return address and shipping address were in the couple’s name. The return location, the couple looked up, was a graffiti-covered brick building in New York — there was no Verizon signage anywhere to be seen. 

The couple agreed that returning the watches to the Verizon corporate store in Topeka was the best option. At the very least, the visit would provide validation. 

The store employee identified the scam immediately, updated the security measures on the couple’s account, and returned the watches. Had the shipping label been used to ship to New York, more than $3,000 would have been charged to their account.

The scam, like others perpetrated across America daily, is becoming far too prevalent. 

On the rise

Included in the 2023 Internet Crime Report, Timothy Langan, executive assistant director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, shares that internet and phone scams are on the rise. 

A key component of the FBI’s effort to keep U.S. citizens and businesses safe from would-be scammers is the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which allows the public to report cybercrime directly. In 2023, IC3 received a record 880,418 complaints, a number that is estimated to be nearly 20% short of the actual crimes committed. In total, individuals and businesses, who reported loss, lost more than $12.5 billion in 2023 to internet and phone scams. 

While investment fraud and business email compromise topped the list for the costliest IC3-tracked crimes in 2023, the third-costliest crime may be surprising. 

Tech support scams, particularly those that target the elderly, were the third most costly IC3-tracked crime in 2023. These crimes are also estimated to be the most underreported.

“Victims 30 to 40 years old were the most likely group to report losses from investment fraud, while the elderly accounted for well over half of the losses to tech support scams,” the report cited. “In 2023, total losses reported to the IC3 by those over the age of 60 topped $3.4 billion, an almost 11% increase in reported losses from 2022.”

To aid potential recovery, the IC3 established a Recovery Asset Team in 2018. The specialized team serves as a streamlined liaison among financial institutions, FBI field offices and victims to quickly freeze funds. The 2023 IC3 report cites a 71% success rate for the team and estimates the potential losses that would have been incurred at $758.05 million. To learn more about the Internet Crime Complaint Center, visit ic3.gov. 

If you suspect you’ve been a victim of a scam, call your local law enforcement agency and report the crime. Remember, phone and internet scams know no boundaries — rural addresses are just as vulnerable as metropolitan.

Talk about it

For LaVell Winsor, who serves as a Kansas State University farm analyst, and Wesley Tucker, an agribusiness specialist at the University of Missouri Extension, underreporting from the elderly of financial fraud is no surprise. Both professionals travel throughout their respective states helping farm families navigate the challenges of farm transition and finances. 

“It’s important to create awareness of how fraud and scams can happen. We need to be talking to our parents and grandparents, even one another, about how real these scams can seem,” Winsor says.

Both agree that open communication is the key to preventing scam losses. Tucker adds that those conversations should be planned and intentional.

“Much of the generation that is most vulnerable to scams believes that everyone has their best interest at heart — because they have people’s best interest at heart. It’s hard for the handshake generation to believe that there are people out there who want to intentionally steal from them,” he says. 

Tucker recommends putting safeguards in place to protect both the individual and farm assets. And if executed correctly, the exercise in financial safety can help to build trust. 

He recommends regularly scheduled family meetings to talk about finances and other important farm matters.

“Put it on the calendar and keep the siblings, aunts, uncles, anyone who has an interest in the farm in the loop and on the call,” Tucker says, adding that family meetings are an easy way to incorporate new and difficult topics like fraudulent activities and phone scams. 

“If you’re all talking about the same thing, the conversation … the sharing … becomes easier. It’s a good way for everyone to stay updated and for the older generation to feel comfortable sharing any suspicious activity they may have encountered,” he says.

Handke writes from Easton, Kan.