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West Michigan Senior citizens
learn how to avoid being scammed

A free seminar that is making its way around West Michigan is helping senior citizens arm themselves against scams.

Many elderly people attended the seminar in Belding on Tuesday.

"If a person wanted to rob somebody, they'd use a mask, a gun, a knife," says Ionia County Sheriff Dwain Dennis.

But times have changed and many thieves now use a computer, the mail or phone. One of the best lessons learned at the seminar is that no one is safe from solicitation.

"How often you receive solicitation for your money...one or two times a week," says Sheriff Dennis.

Recently Sheriff Dennis received such a notification informing him he had won a lottery in Mexico and all they needed was his bank account number to wire him the prize.

And then there is the e-mail Sheriff Dennis received that informed him his checking account may have been erroneously debited $35.

"They'll allow you to contest that debit to your account if you just send them your account number and they'll put that money back into your account...except the money doesn't flow in that direction," says Sheriff Dennis.

So lesson number one is to keep all those numbers (bank account, social security number, etc.) to yourself, and if you get asked for it, suggest an alternative.

"You can use a date of birth, your mother's maiden name and the last four digits. Those would be a good identifier of a person," says Vonda Tilman of the Social Security Administration.

This is all good information, but if someone is going to scam you, officials say it's likely to be someone you know, even love. "I'd say about 60 to 70 percent of these sorts of crimes are committed by family members," says Trooper Larry Cannon of the Michigan State Police.

Karen Doty knows this all too well. "A sister of mine took checks from my parents and wrote bad checks," she says.

Trooper Cannon suggests in order to prevent this sort of scam is for a family to be watchful. "Other family members might keep an eye on, say a nephew, who suddenly starts hanging around grandma and asks a lot of questions about finances...things like that," he says.

They are tough lessons to learn later in life, but good ones just the same.