Montana AG Teams with AARP to Fight Fraud against Seniors

The Attorney General's Office of Consumer Protection and AARP Montana collaboratively trained volunteers this week who will in turn educate community groups in several Montana cities about scams, fraud, and identity theft.

Spokeswoman Anastasia Burton said the people chosen to provide the training are already volunteers with AARP.

“They all have backgrounds that are conducive to being good at outreach,” said Burton. “For example, some were teachers, one is a retired attorney, one is retired law enforcement, and so these folks are used to getting out there and giving presentations and working face to face with people.”

Burton described some of the scams that are being conducted against seniors in Montana.

“The scams are the same that we’ve always seen, but the scammers are just finding new methods to scam people,” she said. “For example, the IRS scam, we previously saw over the phone, but now we see people getting text messages where the senders are pretending from the IRS, so essentially the scams remain the same, they’re just delivered in new methods.”

Burton said Montana’s population is aging rapidly.

“We know that by the year 2035 the baby boomers will outnumber children for the first time in our nation’s history,” she said. “However, they’re making a disproportionally larger number of people who are being scammed, so that’s why this partnership is something that we’re really excited about.”

To request a scam awareness presentation free of charge, listeners are invited to visit Montana’s Office of Consumer Protection website, or call AARP’s Nancy Andersen at (406) 457-4703.