New scam prevention program empowers Boulder County residents to stay safe

A Personal Journey to Combat Scams

Five years ago, Steve Conley’s mother almost fell victim to a scam. A caller pretending to be her grandson claimed he was in jail in Florida and needed $5,000 for bail immediately. She was on the verge of sending the money when she called Conley. Fortunately, she didn’t lose any money because she reached out before making the transaction.

A few years later, Conley’s mother-in-law lost $10,000 to a scam. This experience motivated him to take action. He created a training program and began visiting senior living facilities to educate residents about common scams. His goal was to help people recognize and avoid fraud, and he wanted the program to grow beyond his own efforts.

Now, Conley volunteers for the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office’s new Fraud Awareness Training Program. The program officially launched in February 2026 after Conley, a volunteer victim advocate at the time, proposed the idea to the sheriff’s office in late 2024. The initiative is entirely volunteer-run and free for any community group, homeowner’s association, senior center, business, or organization in the county. Its main objective is to educate residents about fraud and scams so they can protect themselves more effectively.

“We are incredibly excited about this volunteer-led initiative,” said Sheriff Curtis Johnson in a statement. “By equipping our community with the knowledge and tools to recognize and avoid scams, we hope to see a measurable decline in the number of fraud cases we respond to and help protect our community before it’s too late.”

The Surge in Scam Activity

Fraud and scam activity has been increasing both nationally and in Colorado, according to a sheriff’s office release. In 2024, scammers stole over $243 million from Coloradans, which is nearly a $56 million increase from the previous year, according to an FBI Denver release. Colorado ranked seventh in the nation in terms of complaints filed per capita that year.

In Boulder, credit card and ATM fraud has increased by about 33% since 2022, with 107 such crimes reported in 2025, according to Boulder police data. The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office consistently deals with new scam cases, as noted by Detective Kyle Arehart, who has investigated scam and fraud cases for over 10 years. Of the 15 cases he is currently working on, one-third involve fraud or scams.

Recently, the office has seen a rise in cryptocurrency-related cases, which can be difficult to trace. Arehart, who previously worked in Brighton before joining the sheriff’s office two and a half years ago, has observed that more victims are losing larger amounts of money, often in the tens of thousands of dollars. When handling fraud or scam cases, his first priority is to stop fraudulent bank transfers or check payments to prevent further losses. However, after that, there is often little detectives can do.

“It seems they’re more likely not to be solved than to be solved,” Arehart said.

Identifying Red Flags and Preventing Scams

The Fraud Awareness Training Program includes one-hour sessions where volunteers teach attendees how to identify common scams, prevent becoming a victim, and what to do if they have already been targeted. The training highlights five red flags: a caller encouraging someone to keep the exchange secret, asking for passwords, creating a sense of urgency, requesting money to be sent out of the country, or describing scenarios that are unlikely to be real.

For example, if a scammer claims someone has won the Canadian Lottery, they should ask themselves if they actually bought a Canadian lottery ticket. According to Arehart, the most significant red flag is urgency.

“There’s always some kind of urgency, and they don’t want people to stop and think about what they’re being asked to do, or they don’t want people to go tell anyone else what they’re doing,” he said.

The goal of the training is to encourage people to “push the pause button,” Conley said. “Nothing really has to be done that quickly, so they could just take a moment to ask a police officer or even run it by a family member. Someone’s antenna is going to go up, and they’re going to say, ‘I don’t think this is legit.'”

People should also be aware that personal details like addresses, phone numbers, and relatives’ names can often be found online, Arehart added. “It makes a scammer seem credible, but really all that info is out there online.”

Conley hopes that the next time someone receives a scam call or sees a computer pop-up pretending to be Microsoft, they will remember the training. “That’s really all it takes is that little tingle that says, ‘wait, I heard about this.’ That’s why we do these classes.”

Breaking the Silence Around Scams

One of the best defenses against scammers, Conley said, is knowledge. He hopes the training will encourage people to talk openly about scams. “I want you to, at the dinner table, if you got scammed or almost got scammed, I want you to talk about it because that’s the best way that other people at the table won’t get scammed,” he said.

It can be challenging for people to admit they’ve fallen victim to a scam, but Conley believes this needs to change. “The scammer’s best bet and best dream is that shame thing. If they can keep us from all talking about it, that helps them.”

Conley emphasized that scams can happen to anyone. “This can happen to any of us. I do this every day, and I know there’s going to be a day when my mom is sick, or there’s something where I’m not quite mentally with it, and somebody calls, and I just miss the clues. It just can’t be a shame thing.”