Letter: Sounding the alarm on scams
The Vail Daily ran a story about local law enforcement trying to deal with scams on the internet and other channels of communication. I’m sure a lot of people identify with this problem. Who knows how much theft is going on by these efforts? But local law enforcement is not the right level to deal with it.
I get phone calls, emails and texts that claim to be legitimate businesses or government agencies. I suspect that they are just phishing for information to use for unwholesome purposes or getting people who don’t know any better to send money.
I get emails that contain the letterheads, etc. of legitimate corporations, but I never hear of those corporations taking any action to suppress these misrepresentations. I ordered some merchandise from a Facebook ad and it never arrived. When I checked with the named vendor, they said they had no connection with the outfit that ran the ad. I tried sending a complaint to Facebook but their system didn’t work for me.
A while back the Colorado Bureau of Investigation issued a notice of interest about this matter and asked that people advise them of scam attempts. I sent in several samples for a while, but never heard back, and never learned of anything CBI was doing.
I submit that the proper level of government to deal with this is the federal government because there are interstate and international factors to deal with. But I am not aware of what, if anything is being done at that level. Maybe the new administration will do better.
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I once contacted the office of Sens. Michael Bennet. The person I spoke to was sympathetic but advised that this was not his area of concern. He took my contact information and said the appropriate person in their office would get back to me. I never heard back.
In the recent election campaign, I don’t recall anyone raising this issue. I still don’t know which federal agency is the appropriate one to deal with the problem. Or what, if anything, they are doing. What responses I have heard are that it is difficult because these scammers are operating from places like Russia, Nigeria, the Philippines, etc.
Is that it? We can’t do anything about the problem? I suspect if the noisy axle got some grease, something effective could be done.
Terry Quinn
Eagle
