‘It’s okay to wait for a day,’: Hanover County Sheriff’s Office holds informative session on scams

HANOVER COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — The Hanover County Sheriff's Office is trying to “Stop the Scam.”  

Deputies with the sheriff's office are holding a special informative session on Tuesday, March 11 to educate as many people as possible on the dangers of scams and how to recognize them.  

The sheriff's office wants people to remember, “it's okay to wait for a day," a message they hope drives away the urgency that so many people feel when they are being preyed on.  

Tuesday's informative session will be the first of what officials hope will be many more sessions with that message, as investigators anticipate doing more of these informative sessions in the future.  

Officials said that after seeing so many people fall victim to scams in the area, they knew something had to be done. While the informative session is open to the public and all are welcome to attend, they want to put an extra focus on the seniors and caregiver demographic.  

Sergeant Steve Wills with the Hanover Sheriff's Office says that the elderly are more at risk of falling for scams and educating the people who take care of them on these scams and spotting the signs is just as important.  

"We've had investigations where we've been telling these victims, you know, you are being scammed," Wills said. "This person does not exist. And it doesn't matter what we tell them. They are convinced that they're in a relationship or whatever the situation might be and that, you know, we're not right. And it makes it very difficult to help those individuals. I would think anybody that is of working age or older might be retired needs to probably come see this."

Wills said that some of the scams that tend to impact the elderly include romance scams and scams involving law enforcement because they can tend to be elaborate. They said that the “click here” or “virus warning” scams are also dangerous.  

"For those situations, I would say it is probably the elderly and more commonly because they're probably not as technology savvy as a younger person would be," Wills said. "Plus, they probably have more savings already put away. And so, it makes it a bigger target financially for the suspects to go after people like that. I remember having a case that was being investigated a few years ago and we had a victim that lost, I want to say, was over $400,000." 

Deputies with the sheriff's office will be able to answer questions, provide tips and more in person at Tuesday's session.  

The “Stop the scams” informative session starts at 6 p.m.at the Truth Baptist Church on Lee Davis Road.