 Let's get started. I am here today to announce the top 10 scams that the Consumer Assistance Program received last year. And with me are a troop of the people who work and help the work at and help the Consumer Assistance Program. We have the director of the Consumer Assistance Program, Chris Curtis, and Crystal Baldwin, our longest-serving employee at the Consumer Assistance Program. And we also have Margaret Tab, who helps answer the calls and supervises students who help. And our small business advocate, Emily, whose name, why am I not running? McDonald. McDonald, thank you. We also have with us students. And the reason why we have students is because CAP, the Consumer Assistance Program, is actually a partnership between the Attorney General's Office and the University of Vermont. It's located at the University of Vermont. And when you call the Consumer Assistance Program, it's possible or maybe likely that it will actually be a UVM student who picks up the phone and helps you. So we are very proud to have the students. A couple of them are here with us today. And we also have Attorney Ted Hobson, who has been helping consumers since longer than some of us have been alive. Thank you, Ted. And I'm really glad to be here to help provide education and preventative measures that you can take on scams. So let's just define what is a scam. A scam is essentially when someone is trying to use the marketplace to trick you to give them your money. And they also might, instead of just money, they might trick you into giving them your personal information that they can use to steal your identity, your credit card information, your bank account, some other way to get money from you. They're incredibly common, unfortunately. Oftentimes, these scams originate overseas. That makes it very difficult for the government officials and law enforcement to track them down and shut them down. And that is why the most effective way to fight scam is to educate ourselves and support our community in providing education and making sure that everybody is aware of these scams. And that's one reason why we're here today to highlight these top 10 scams that the Consumer Assistance Program received last year. So I want to remind everybody that while robo calls are something that people associate with scams, there's actually every possible avenue can create an opportunity for a scammer to get your money or your personal information. Something like a text or an email. They have fake websites, fake listings on eBay or Craigslist, and sometimes they get creative and will even scam you in person. So these are unfortunately in the marketplace, there's lots of opportunities for folks to be scamming. So we always have to be on the lookout, and these scams cost for Vermonters a lot of money. Every year it's millions of dollars lost to scams just by Vermonters. And it's really important that we do what we can to educate folks so that we can try to get that number down and prevent people from being scammed. You know, one of the things that can be so challenging is that there is a lot of shame, I think, people feel when they are the victim of a scam. And we want to tell you don't be afraid to call the consumer assistance program for help. There's people who are there to help you. We've literally seen it all. There's in the scam that we haven't seen, and we're there to support you and help you through it. So please, please call and don't be afraid or ashamed of calling. It happens to so many Vermonters and we're there to support you. Let me say a little bit about the number one tool I always say that scammers use is to spike your emotional response. So if you are being solicited by someone and you have a sense of false urgency that is being you're being manipulated to have that sense of false urgency, take a moment and pause. Scammers will use a urgent situation to spike your emotional response to try to get your money or your personal information. And when you sense that your emotional response is being spiked, that's your moment to slow down, take a minute, take a pause, call the consumer assistance program. We also are happy to receive calls that are just, Hey, I think I'm being scammed, but I'm not really sure. And we can walk you through that. So please don't hesitate to pick up the call and contact us. They are praying on our emotional, you know, urgency, they're praying on our vulnerability. And if you are someone who you feel like you're really savvy with scams, keep in mind you might have a loved one, a neighbor, a grandparent, or a friend who is vulnerable to a scam, whether that's because their loneliness, or they don't have a lot of, you know, financial sophistication with the way things work, or technical sophistication, we're going to hear in a minute about some of the tech support scams and how insidious they can be. So that's an overview on scams. Let's get into some of the numbers on scams. In 2022, CAP logged 3685 scam reports. That is a lot of scams. But it's actually less than we have seen in previous years. So the scam reports are down. And we'll talk a little bit about maybe why that is, although we're not actually positively sure. The primary reporting methods are direct submissions to CAP's online reporting tool, which can be reached at ago.vermont.gov slash CAP, and CAP's toll free hotline, which you can call at 1-800-649-2424. I should note that, you know, I mentioned the UVM students who are there to help is a service learning program located at UVM as a partnership that's been going on for over 40 years. So it's actually really wonderful. And that's kind of the overview of the numbers. Let me give you a couple of tips that I didn't mention earlier because I didn't get there in my notes. One, if you receive a scam call and you're thinking this is a scam call, don't engage. It's very tempting to tell the person off, don't do it. You have to hang up the phone. Don't call them back. If someone texts you and you know it's a scam, don't text them back. Once a scammer logs, this is a number where the person engages. You've identified yourself as someone who might engage with a scammer. It doesn't matter that in this instance, you knew it was a scam. Next time, you might not know it's a scam. They're going to write your number down as this person might fall for a scam someday. So don't engage. Hang up the phone. Don't text. Don't be tempted. Just disengage. So now with all of that, without further ado, let me tell you the top scam that Cap saw last year that was reported to Cap last year. So the number one scam received by the Consumer Assistance Program in 2022 was the fake package scam. That can take a few forms. So I'll talk about that. But really, it's that's the avenue for them to get your money is there's a fake package. So they will text you, email you or call you and tell you that a package is going to be delivered. And they just need your credit card number to, you know, make sure that the full payment has been made. Or that they'll try to get your personal information in some way and the fake package is the way they're going to do that. The ultimate goal that in this is so dangerous is they are going to try to get you to allow remote access into their your computer. Once they are allowed into your computer via remote access, they can access all of your files, your bank account information, and they can completely take over and steal your money. And we have seen literally hundreds of thousands of dollars lost due to a tech support or some other scam like the fake package scam, where you have allowed the scammer access to your computer remotely. So don't ever do that unless you are completely certain that the entity is a legitimate entity you're allowing to access your computer remotely. So that is the number one scam. We will tell you the top 10 scams before we move ahead with anything else, though, I want to turn over the podium to Crystal Baldwin, who I mentioned is our longest serving member of the CAP team. She is maybe the number one scam expert in Vermont. I'm going to say it. She knows a ton about scams and how to protect herself. And she might even be the person you speak to when you call the Consumer Assistance Program. She's a ton of knowledge is coming your way. So take it over Crystal. Well, first I'd like to say, I think we're really fortunate in Vermont to have an attorney general that cares so much about scam prevention and awareness, to know so much about it to be a scam awareness expert and spread the information across Vermont. So thank you. Really appreciate that. So yes, I am Crystal Baldwin, and I'm from the Vermont Attorney General's Consumer Assistance Program at the University of Vermont, which we call CAP. And alongside my colleagues every day, including our service learning students, we take consumer complaints, scam complaints, and we educate about issues of consumer nature and we provide referrals to Vermonters. So for more than a decade in my tenure at CAP, I've seen thousands of scam reports, and I've logged thousands of scam reports. And the hope is that when the Vermonters share their stories that they can help prevent fraud in the lives of others. They always say that. Scams affect everyone. They affect me, you, our neighbors, members of our community, literally everyone at people of every class and profession. I've taken reports from nurses, doctors, lawyers, businesses, everyone receives scams, even our college students, everyone. How does scams happen? So over the course of my experience in reviewing complaints each year, I've noticed scams that successfully take funds tend to have a few things in common. One is there's an element of trust in the scam. Another is there's a perceived authority figure involved in the scam. And sometimes a scam might be a little new or different from what we're used to. When an element of trust exists, a scam is more likely to be accessible. And you see this in all imposter scams. These are family emergency scams, grandparents scams, romance, relationship scams, computer tech scams, where you get a phone call and you hear from somebody saying basically they know more about your computer than you do. So why not trust them? You may even get an internal email from a colleague telling you to pay on an existing expense account. That could be a scam. When there's a perceived authority figure, they're also successful, like a phone call claiming to be a government or law enforcement official. And we've seen this more this year. Basically, they're threatening legal action or arrest, and they can be really scaring and jarring for the people receiving those calls and difficult to hang up on. And then in the last category of newness, we see this often because the general public is just unfamiliar with the scams. So that scam education we've been telling you about, they're unaware. So they proceed with caution, but maybe not enough caution. And we see this in gift card scams, in part because people don't know that when you give the information on the back of a gift card, you're giving the scam or access to that account and all the money in it. How do we go about spotting scams then, when everyone is a target? And scams are difficult to avoid and they're ever changing. So the answer is, we fight fraud together. So sometimes it is our grandparents. I'll never forget about 10 years ago, there was a gracious grandmother in the Northeast kingdom. And she came forward to cap on the phone, telling her story about how her grandchild urgently called asking for some money. On her way to send a local store agent, wire transfer agent, just asked a simple question. Have you called your grandson yet? What about his mother? The grandmother went on and made the call and found out the grandchild was safely on the couch at home. Fighting fraud is this agent simple question. And I also won't forget the time a bank teller called cap and said, they had a consumer in their office about to withdraw a large sum of money for a sweepstakes. With the consumer on the line, we worked out that the sweepstakes was actually a scam asking $4,000 upfront. No prize should ever require a fee to claim it. Fighting fraud is this banker who cared about their customer. I will never forget scores of local technology consultants who helped identify computer scams in progress and went on to restore systems and direct people toward recovery resources like cap. Fighting fraud is the specialist who identifies the true source of the problem. This case, it was a scam. And I will remember the online romance that asked for a bit too much. And when exposed morphed into a government imposter scam that made more false promises of monetary refunds, that only finally concluded when a community of empathetic support and kindness stepped in. You see when every one of us fights fraud by going out of our way to extend a minute to lend a hand to help another Vermonter in need, we're fighting fraud together. Sure, cap, we answer the phone and we answer questions. But we all can learn about scams and fight fraud. Did you want me to review some of the top scams? Well, why don't I list them and then we can see if there's questions about the top scams. Cool. Thank you, Chris. So I wanted to just go over the top 10 scams. I'll list them all. We are going to have a press release go out which will also be available on our webpage that describes each of the scams and also what you can do about it, how to fight it, how to be aware of it, but also what to do if you fall in for it. So that'll be really useful, but they are. So number one is, of course, the fake package scam. Number two is the computer tech support scam, which is very effective because once someone gets into your computer, they really can take everything. So that's a really popular one. And it's very concerning. Number three is a sweepstakes and lottery scam that Crystal mentioned, where someone thinks someone is trying to get you to give them money in advance of their of your winning your supposed winnings, the law enforcement imposter scam, the family emergency imposter scam, and then fake websites and online listings. This is an example would be someone puts on Craigslist, an apartment that doesn't isn't really available and they don't really own and then they're trying to get, you know, a fake deposit for you that for an apartment that doesn't exist. The debt collection scam, deceitful solicitations, straight up identity theft, and the Medicare card fishing scam where they're trying to get information from you. Though that's the overview of the scams. And you can do a deep dive at the extreme questions, if you have a question about a particular one, we can talk about that and Crystal I'm sure be a wealth of information. But let me just talk a little bit about some of the data. It's not really data because it's all anecdotal, but the information that we gleaned when we reviewed the scams from 2022. The first is that for the first time in eight years, the scam reporting dipped below 5000. And we don't exactly know why but we have some ideas as to potentially why the first is that we had created a robocall team. Ted is a member of that team as the attorney working on that. And we have actually brought action and settled with robocallers who were bringing scams illegally into this country. And the second reason is the Federal Trace Act, which was passed in 2021 and created protections for consumers. It required some of the phone operators to carriers to block robocalls and also provide a caller ID system. What I hope isn't a reason is that members of our community aren't reporting scams because they don't think it's important because it's very important. As Crystal mentioned, it's really important that we fight fraud together, take care of each other. And that means letting us know when there's a scam that's happening. We have a scam reporting system at the Attorney General's office at the Consumer Assistance Program. And that is triggered when we get a lot of scam reports. If people aren't reporting the scam, we don't know that there's a problem out there that needs to have a scam report, a scam alert issue. So please make sure to report a scam, even if you know it's a scam, you just report it to the Consumer Assistance Program so that we're aware of it. So that really ends the remarks that we had prepared for the press release. Well, thanks for being here. We really appreciate it. Let's I love Crystal's line fighting scams together fighting fraud together. So it really appreciate you guys being here to amplify the message and we'll close the press conference. Thanks.