- February 8, 2025
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Judith Rossetti has a lot to say about cyber safety.
Rossetti, who works with Florida’s Attorney General’s office, spoke to residents at the Port Orange Regional Library on Tuesday, July 18 about the scams on the Internet and how avoid them.
According to Rossetti, a prime target for scammers is people over the age of 65. She noted most people in this age group are retired and usually have extra funds, making them key targets. Rossetti said many of these scams will involved emails mentioning children or grandchildren urging the recipient to send money to help them.
"Scammers figure out your vulnerability," Rossetti said. "They'll email you that your grandson has had a car accident and the hospital needs money."
According to the 2016 Internet Crime Report from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, since 2000 the IC3 has received more than 3.7 million complaints on Internet scams and crimes. Last year alone, there was more than $1.3 billion reported losses due to these Internet related scams and crimes.
Florida came in third at $89 million in money lost to Internet fraud in 2016, according to the IC3 report. Only California and New York had higher losses. Business Email Compromise scams ranked highest in Florida for dollars lost with an amount of $29,560,665 reported last year. According to the IC3, this scam targets businesses working with foreign suppliers or other businesses where wire transfers are regularly performed.
When it comes to reporting these incidents, Rossetti noted it happens far too little.
"A lot of adult don't think it'll make a difference so they don't report it, they don't call the police, they don't report it to consumer affairs, nothing. They just live with it," Rossetti said. "But it's very important that we as adults do take the responsibility and report it."
Rossetti said scammers make lists of individuals to target and will use those to send out thousands of emails hoping for five or 10 responses. What becomes an even larger problem, according to Rossetti, is that those people who have previously fallen prey to a scam will continue to be targeted. Rossetti said most of these lists come out of Jamaica.
"If you've ever had any kind of problem where you've been scammed about something you're probably on the list," Rossetti said. "So be very, very careful that you don't respond to these kinds of emails you don't know anything about or you don't know where they came from."
According to Rossetti, some of the best ways to avoid scams include being password savvy, never letting a device remember passwords or usernames, and being wary of anything that promotes free products or services.
"We don't think we'll be taken a lot of times, that we're too smart for this," Rossetti said. ''That's what makes us vulnerable. You have to do your homework."
