Missouri attorney general warns of scams, discusses Facebook inquiry

There’s no shortage of scams, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt warned residents of the Chateau Girardeau retirement community during a visit Thursday to Cape Girardeau.

Scam artists seek to steal people’s money via telephone, internet, mail and door-to-door activities, he said.

“These are smart folks trying to steal your money,” Schmitt told about 100 people who gathered to hear about the various types of scams.

Today’s scams often involve pop-up ads on the internet, which demand money to fix an imaginary computer problem, Schmitt said.

“No, your Apple ID has not been locked,” he told the audience.

“It is a phishing expedition,” he said, explaining scammers are looking to obtain personal information to steal from people.

“The internet isn’t always our friend,” he said.

Some of the more frequent scams target grandparents, seeking money by claiming a favorite grandchild is in jail or coping with some other predicament, Schmitt said.

“It is sad, but it is prevalent,” he added. “They sort of prey on their vulnerability.”

Schmitt said those on the receiving end of such calls should “hang up and call your grandchild.”

Other scams attempt to convince people they are being contacted by government agencies such as the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service and need to make immediate payments, Schmitt said.

Schmitt said his office has a team dedicated to combating scams.

Since January, his office has recovered $10 million for consumers victimized by scams, Schmitt said.

Thursday’s visit was Schmitt’s fourth and final stop across the state this week to raise public awareness about scams.

Attorneys general have worked together in multistate efforts to combat scams, which often cross state lines.

“These are international in scope,” he said, adding some scams originate from call centers in Asia.

“[Scam artists] are getting more sophisticated and using more technology than ever before,” the attorney general told reporters after the presentation.

Facebook

He also explained his office’s decision to join a bipartisan investigation by 47 state attorneys general into Facebook’s potential violation of state and federal antitrust laws.

“I think it is important that even the biggest of big tech companies are held accountable,” he told reporters.

“There are privacy issues, potentially. There are business-practice issues, potentially,” Schmitt said.

“So we want to get to the bottom of it and make sure these business practices employed by really behemoth companies now are fair and aren’t anticompetitive,” he said.

“We will see where the investigation leads,” Schmitt said when asked whether he is concerned about possible political bias by Facebook.

“These investigations will go where these investigations go and we are not going to hold back,” Schmitt said. “We are going to make sure people are protected and being treated fairly.”

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