SALT LAKE CITY — Utahns are losing millions to phone scams every year, and members of the Utah Fraud Prevention Coalition say it's only getting worse.
Sharlene Wells, a chair with the Coalition, says losses have gone up in recent years. "Since 2020, Utah fraud losses have continued to rise almost like 20 to 30 million per year," Wells said. "2024 was our highest so far, about $114 million in fraud losses. Again, it continued to rise."
Rob Woellhaf, who's a principal consultant for Sentinel Fraud Consulting in Highland, helps small businesses and credit unions protect themselves from fraud. He says the common types of scams he's seeing are imposter scams.
That's when someone contacts you, pretending to be someone else.
"The consumer needs to take some kind of action and usually that involves giving up some type of information, private information, usernames, passwords, social security numbers, and then they ask you to make transactions," he explained.
Woellhaf says scammers often isolate victims. They'll ask the victim to buy gift cards or make transactions at the bank. "If one of your viewers perhaps was a teller at a bank or even cashier at a retail location and they see somebody talking on the phone while they're doing a transaction, often times that can mean something is up," he said.
These days, ignoring a number you don't recognize isn't cutting it anymore. "You can't trust the caller ID; it is too easy to spoof a phone number to make it look like a number you'd recognize. If in doubt — hang up, look at the legitimate phone number on the back of your debit or credit card and then call back," Woellhaf said.
The coalition is launching UtahFraudPreventionCoalition.com on Monday; the site will contain what's trending and the warning signs people should look out for.
“Everybody is vulnerable to fraud, and everybody needs to be vigilant," Woellhaf said.
