A Colorado father picked up the phone and heard what sounded like his son’s panicked voice. “Dad, I’m in trouble … I was in an accident and hit a pregnant woman. I need you to post bail immediately.”
On the way to the bank to withdraw bail money for his son, he called his son’s wife. “I’m taking care of this,” he told her.
This was news to his daughter-in-law, who said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
That’s because the call was generated by artificial intelligence to sound like his son. It was part of a fraud scheme — the kind that’s becoming increasingly popular in Colorado, especially set up to entrap people as they age.
A CPR listener wrote in to the Colorado Wonders team to ask for some updates on crimes against the elderly. It turns out more well-known crimes like assaults and robberies have only barely increased.
Scams using the internet, however, have been rising much faster at rates that are alarming experts who track and try to prevent such crimes.
The “I-hit-a-pregnant-woman” story was told to Karen Moldovan, advocacy director for AARP Colorado, who said the crimes often include a hysterical voice speaking of an urgent need for money. That often causes people to act without thinking and rush to the bank to make a hasty withdrawal.
Mike Sweeney for CPR News
“The scope of fraud right now is just, it’s overwhelming for a lot of people,” said her colleague Mark Fetterhoff, Elder Watch program manager for AARP Colorado, which tracks trends such as scams against older Coloradans.
A new Colorado law, the Adults’ Security and Safeguards from Exploitation in Transaction Act, went into effect this month. It aims to protect people at risk of being scammed because of their age or other vulnerabilities.
Receiving support on both sides of the aisle, the ASSET Act, as it’s called, was introduced in February and signed into law in May.
It is intended to stop fraud, like the one the man almost got tricked into, by giving employees of financial institutions the authority to interrupt transactions they consider potentially fraudulent.
“If that qualified individual sees what they believe to be financial exploitation, if someone is scamming one of their customers and they can see it coming, this [law] … gives them the ability to stop those fraudulent transactions before they go through,” said Colorado State Sen. Jessie Danielson, who co-sponsored the legislation along with State Reps. Sean Camacho and Jamie Jackson, and State Sen. Marc Catlin.
Danielson, who’s championed legislation to protect older Coloradans since 2015, said bankers she spoke to were enthusiastic about the new legislation, which also exists in about half of the states in the U.S.
“I’ve talked with some of the financial institutions, their leaders, the people who run the day-to-day, and they’re very excited that this bill came through,” she said. “These folks, the elders in our community, have worked their entire lives to build up those savings. And these scammers, these fraudsters come and they swipe it away in a blink of an eye.”
Implementation of the ASSET Act won’t cost the state any money; the expense will be the time it will take for people to learn about and implement it, according to the fiscal note.
Data released by the FBI suggests the bill comes right on time, as financial scams in Colorado have been increasing against people who are 60 and older.
The FBI operates an Internet Crime Complaint Center, a central hub for reporting cyber crimes. Based on the complaints people indicated having been faced with in their online form, the increases are surprising.
In 2025, the FBI reported that in Colorado, people over 60 reported about 4,000 instances of fraud, with the amount lost totalling about $145 million.
In 2024, the same age group made more than 3,000 complaints and reported losing almost $75 million.
“The alarming thing is the data that we do have is increasing exponentially,” said Amanda Koldjeski, special agent in charge of the FBI Denver Field Office.
“Our top investment schemes are, in Colorado, investment fraud, tech support fraud, and then confidence and romance scams. But now, cryptocurrency is becoming more popular, so that’s also starting to rise as well,” she said.
She attributes the increase to fraudsters getting more sophisticated as technology advances, noting that in the past, scams were done over the phone and through the mail.
“Now that’s really kind of phasing out because as technology advances, scammers are advancing. So they’re using more email schemes, text message schemes, and then you have your cryptocurrency schemes … and also your typical ransomware attacks, just using anything cyber to get at people, particularly the elder population,” Koldjeski said.
She said the FBI data probably underrepresents the numbers of scams occurring.
“Not all victims, one, realize they’re victims,” she said. “Two, they won’t report it a lot of times out of embarrassment. So we’re only as good as the information and the data that we have.”
Other law enforcement officials are also noticing an uptick in these scams. Michael T. Dougherty, district attorney for the 20th Judicial District, sent out a scam alert on Aug. 18, telling people to be aware of two fraud schemes. One involves “false claims that a person in custody at the Boulder County jail requires immediate payment for release from custody and/or placement in a treatment program.”
In the other scheme, “a community member received a call from an individual claiming to be an employee of the District Attorney’s Office,” and “falsely stated that the victim’s daughter had been accepted into a behavioral health treatment program and could be released from jail if immediate payment was made to secure a monitoring device.”
The scheme netted at least one victim, according to the alert: “Believing the information to be legitimate, the victim sent $600 through Zelle.” The alert said the scheme was made more convincing by the use of names of real staffers in the DA’s office, and names of people currently locked up.
Multiple organizations are suggesting ways people can protect themselves from such trickery. Koldjeski with the FBI said that people approached with an e-mail or text that sounds out-of-the-ordinary should adopt a measured stance, and not respond in haste.
“I would ask people to really think about what is being asked of them and to just stop, take a breath and call your financial institution … especially when it comes to cryptocurrency-type of scams,” she said. “[The bank] is not going to ask to have you wire money, and they’re absolutely not going to ask you for any sort of gold or cryptocurrency transaction.”
Fetterhoff added that the best way to protect oneself is with skepticism: if something sounds fishy, it probably is. “I think a lot of people fall into that trap because they want to believe it’s true … I always say, ‘If this was a real thing, wouldn’t we all be involved in it?’”
The DA’s office said people can stay safe from these scams by avoiding advertisements suggesting “too good to be true” discounts, using caution when buying things from online platforms like Facebook and Craigslist, and being on the lookout for romance scams where scammers “love-bomb you and share details about their fake life.”
Sen. Danielson said the new law will add a layer of protection that goes alongside the suggestions of the AARP, the DA and the FBI.
“We know that these people in the banks and credit unions can spot this kind of thing, and now they’ve got the protection and the tools they need to be able to stop it before it happens,” she said.
Moldovan, who works with the AARP on legislation, said the new law allows bank employees to have some control, especially when people come rushing in, like the AI voice posing as a man who’d called about hitting the pregnant woman.
“If a client has a fairly regular spending pattern, but then all of the sudden they come in, and they’re frantic and asking for $10,000 cash, the bank teller really has an opportunity to be on the front lines and to see there are ways this client may be under duress,” she said.
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