National Military Consumer Protection Day Celebrated with Helpful Tips to Prevent Scams and Fraud for Military Families

Attorney General Tim Fox is marking National Military Consumer Protection Day today by offering specialized tips to help protect active and retired military personnel and their families from consumer fraud. 

"There's a few things folks should be aware of," Anastasia Burton with Attorney General Tim Fox's Office said. "If you're going to be deployed and you're not planning on opening a new line of credit for something like a car loan or a mortgage, you should get up an Active Duty Alert. What happens is it requires predators to take some additional steps to verify your identify before it allows credit to be taken out in your name."

Burton said another thing folks should be aware of are "military targeted scams." Things that Burton said "sound too good to be true" like housing rental prices or scammers who are pretending to be from the Department of Veteran's Affairs.

"One thing we can do is be sure to never wire money for a housing security deposit. They should really look more towards utilizing the Department of Defense sponsored Automated Housing Referral Network to find a house," Burton said. "They should also be very careful not to share any personal account or identity information to somebody who contacts them claiming to be from the VA. The best thing to do is hang up and call the VA directly and ask them if they are trying to contact you."

Finally, Burton said to never hand over identification documents until "you can meet regular folks, at a business place, during regular work hours."