• Meridian Township Treasurer Phil Deschaine

MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - On June 18th the first part of a 3 event series will begin. The 2019 Consumer Education series will begin with the "Phone, Mail & E-Scams Event."

The goal behind the event is to inform people about different scams that are beginning to become more popular in today's society and to minimize people's risk of fraud, e-scams and mail scams. The event isn't limited to but is targeted toward senior citizens due to the fact that they are the most likely to be scammed.

Treasurer of Meridian Township and one of the events hosts, Phil Deschaine spoke on the importance of the event stating, "Senior fraud is a huge issue in this Country. Last year there was estimated that 37 billions dollars was stolen from senior citizens nationwide. Sadly about half of that was stolen by family members. It's become a form of elder abuse."

Deschaine went on to talk about how someone he recently knew was scammed out of over $6,000, "And It recently struck home for us. We recently had one of our employees here at the township, his mother was scammed for over $6,000. She got a call and it was claimed to be her grandson who needed to be bailed out of jail. That was a completely made up story but she didn't realize that was not her grandson until she had wired $6,000 to the scammer. It's a problem in particular because senior citizens, people raised in the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, they are raised in a different generation. They're more likely to be trusting and more likely to be welcoming to a stranger, to listen to them and hear their story. And as a result they're a target for a lot of these scammers and fall prey to these scams. So this seminar, the one next week, is at 10 am at the Meridian Senior Center is really designed to help Senior Citizens identify fraud, identify a scam and what to do when an attempt is made to steal money or scam a person/ resident out of their savings." 

The second (Online Safety) and third (Identity Theft) part of the series will take place in October and November.

The event is open to all and is geared towards helping residents learn online safety tips to protect their identity.