Helping comrades avoid scams

As a Veteran, you have more to protect than the average citizen. Along with your personal accounts, you also have to protect your Veteran ID. 

Protecting fellow brothers and sisters in arms from scams is a passion of Thomas Engelhardt, who spent his Army career as a computer programmer. Some may recognize Engelhardt as the Veteran who volunteers his time playing music in the Minneapolis VA Medica Center Veterans Canteen Service Patriot Cafe during the lunch hour once a week. He’s just as motivated to provide scam-avoidance tips as he is to perform. 

“I’ve been gathering materials on ways to avoid being a victim of fraud. One of the most important things to remember is the techniques fraudsters use are effective,” said Engelhardt.

Scammers often pretend to be contacting you on behalf of the government. They might use a real name, like the VA, Social Security Administration, IRS, or Medicare. They might say you’re in trouble with the government. Or you owe money. Or someone in your family had an emergency. These scammers want you to act before you have time to think. If you’re on the phone, they might tell you not to hang up so you can’t check out their story.

Engelhardt has a unique way to get around being sucked into a scam on the phone. “We have an extra phone. We only give out our real cell phone numbers to people or other entities we trust, and we don’t trust many,” he said. “Selling phone numbers is profitable, fact. If there is a legitimate call on our extra line, they leave a message, we call back. We get perhaps five hang-ups a day, minimum."   

"Also, just because the phone rings, you don’t have to answer! So don’t answer unless you know the caller! Again, a legitimate caller will leave a message. Some fraudsters might also leave a message; we have to be on our guard at all times.”  

And just because you get an email, you don’t have to respond. Phishing emails have gotten very sophisticated, even using bank and other company logos and official sounding language to trick the targeted recipient into providing them with personal information. If you receive this type of email, don’t click on it – call your bank, credit card company or other organization directly and verify that they sent the message. In all cases, if you don’t recognize the sender, it’s best to delete the email without even opening it.

Other steps that you can take to protect your information, including your VA accounts are:

• Set a strong password when you create an account by using uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and symbols, and change it regularly.
• Review and respond to security alerts notifying you when changes are made to an account.
• Do not save the login and password to your web browser or cell phone.
• Sign out of accounts when you are finished with the session.
• Do not wire or send money or cryptocurrency to someone you don’t know.
• Be aware of public Wi-Fi. Identity thieves can monitor what you do, capture your credentials as you log in to bank, credit card, and VA accounts, even if it’s password-protected. 

VA has several protections in place to keep your personally identifiable information (PII) safe. This includes using highly trained VA employees to handle sensitive material and employing a team of network security experts to monitor and safeguard systems and databases. VA is also working to reduce the collection of Social Security Numbers (SSNs) as the department’s primary identifier.

If you were scammed or think you saw a scam, be like Engelhardt and look out for your brothers and sisters in arms. Report scams to the Federal Trade Commission at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. 

To learn more about identity theft and how you can prevent being scammed, visit VA Privacy resources at https://department.va.gov/privacy/identity-theft/.