By ANITA HIRSCH

Special to The Press

At the New Tripoli Fire Station on March 23, state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-187th, offered a free seminar on identity theft.

The well-attended lecture was conducted by Danielle Moore, education and outreach specialist from the Office of the Attorney General, Harrisburg.

Moore talked about 10 scams that are prevalent today.

The first she mentioned was the tech repair scam: someone calls and says your internet is broken and to click a link.

The second scam is the sweetheart swindle which begins with online dating.

A third is the investment scam that seems too good to be true, and it is.

The fourth is the front door fraud during which someone comes to your front door with magazines or they appear to be contractors looking at your roof or they go around your neighborhood and try to sell residents something.

Another scam involves fake online shopping sites.

The caller says something is wrong with your account and mentions business names such as CVS, Walgreens, Target or Walmart.

Another is the caller saying to click on a link to claim a sweepstakes win. But did you enter one?

Moore advised never giving a credit card number over the phone to a caller.

She also advised mailing all checks at the post office, not putting in the front of your house for the outgoing mail.

Often envelopes with checks are found by these dishonest people.

They also look for those large and colorful envelopes that grandparents often use to mail money or checks to grandchildren and they are stolen out of mailboxes.

In addition, Moore said to never give a caller your Social Security number.

Properly dispose of medications so no one can take your name off a medication.

With the grandparent scam, a senior citizen is called and the person says his or her grandchild needs money to get out of jail.

Another is the package scam which involves a caller saying the recipient needs to pay to receive a package.

Anyone who is scammed, is asked to report the incident to police, or to attorneygeneral.gov.

Be sure to call all the credit card issuers to have credit frozen.