 I'm TJ Dunovan, Vermont's Attorney General, and I'm Monica Hutt, Commissioner at the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living. Every year, hundreds of older Vermonters are victimized by professional scammers trying to rob you of your identity, your resources, and your sense of safety. But there is something you can do to protect yourself. This series, Stay Savvy Vermont, is designed to show you how those scams work and what they look like so that you can identify them and guard against them. Stay Savvy Vermont is a collaboration between the Vermont Attorney General's Office, the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living, Cove, and Cove's SMP Savvy Seniors, and Orca Media. Our goal is to give you information to protect yourself and your families from scams. And to tell you what resources are available to you if you think you've already been scammed. This is information you can share with your friends, your family, anyone you think may be a target. Protecting ourselves, protecting each other, that's what we can do to combat professional scammers. We hope this series will be the first line in defense to keep ourselves and everybody safe and free from exploitation. Stay smart, stay safe, stay Savvy Vermont. The Johnson's are moving top because they can't stand the shame of having Peter going into a hair styling school. Oh, this is interesting. There's a meeting Tuesday night at the church to talk about whether we should fix the steeple or just take it down. I'd hate to see them take it down, wouldn't you Roscoe? Oh, here's a cute word from Jane. I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape. I so I got my doctor's permission to join a fitness club and start exercising. I decided to take an aerobics class for seniors. I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down and perspired for an hour. But by the time I got my leotards on the class was over. Did you hear that Roscoe? It's just from Beverly and Roger on their Alaska trip. Roscoe, I sent pictures from Beverly and Roger in Alaska. Nice. So if you've got your wallet on you, I need our credit card number. What are you buying now? Nothing. I'm making money for us this time. You're making money for us? Yes, I'm doing a customer satisfaction survey from Costco and they're going to give us a hundred dollar credit for filling it out. I need our credit card number so they can give us the credit. Let me look at that. I mean delete that right now. Get rid of it. I just heard about this at the senior center last week. They make that look nice and official, but that's not really from Costco. That's from a bunch of internet crooks that are trying to steal your credit card. Oh nuts. I was thinking we could use that hundred dollars for new dishes. Ours are beginning to look like dime store seconds. Honey, if we need new dishes just go down to Costco and buy them. But you've got to understand that every time you go on the internet, there are bad guys out there that are using every trick in the book to try to cheat you. The next time you open up your laptop, you've got to imagine that it may be wearing the black mask of a bandit. That's enough for today I guess. Yeah, that's for sure. Jason, what do I do if I get an email request to invest in a financial opportunity that I have not heard of before? It's important to be wary of any unsolicited email that you receive asking for any kind of sensitive personal information or financial information. If you get an email about an investment opportunity and it's not something that you're familiar with or that you've asked for before, contact the Vermont Attorney General's Office or the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation to see if this is a licensed broker or a legitimate offer. What do I do if I've already sent money into an investment opportunity that seems suspicious? Unfortunately, in most cases, if money has been sent, it's probably unrecoverable. However, it's important that you take immediate steps as soon as you can at any point where you feel unsure when you've sent money to someone for any purpose. Contact the Vermont Attorney General's Office and we'll try to help you understand what happened and protect yourself from any future loss. Where should I report investment offers like this that I've received via the internet? You can report any financial offer that you see to the Vermont Attorney General's Office or in the case of an investment, the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation. We can help provide information about whether a broker is licensed or how to protect yourself and your personal information from getting scammed. The Office of the Attorney General recently launched a new scam alert system because so little can be done once the scam has occurred and money has been transferred. The purpose of the scam alert system is to notify people and prevent the harm from happening in the first place. How this system will work is participants can sign up for receiving a scam alert through either email, text, or phone call. And once a scam has been launched, the Office of the Attorney General will send out an alert through either text, email, or phone. And sign up for the VT scam alert system at 1-800-649-2424 or by visiting consumer.vermont.gov.