211 Crime Prevention
Resources Guide
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please call 911.
If you believe you may have information about a trafficking situation:
- Call the National Human Trafficking Hotline toll-free hotline at 1-888-373-7888
- Text the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 233733
- Chat with the National Human Trafficking Hotline 24/7 at humantraffickinghotline.org/chat
If you need resources, reach out to 211.
A newer type of trafficking that has been identified, Benefits Trafficking was first recognized by law enforcement in the state of Georgia in 2011.
What is Benefits Trafficking?
An emerging crime which targets at-risk adults to gain access to their monthly benefits and perpetrate various types of abuse, theft, and fraud. Victims are often held in deplorable conditions while owners/operators of care homes live off victims’ monthly benefits.
The state of Georgia defines it as trafficking an individual for benefits appropriation when that person, through coercion, deception, exploitation, or isolation, knowingly recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, or obtains by any means an individual for the purpose of appropriating that individual’s financial benefits (public benefits, retirement benefits, health insurance benefits, military benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, etc.) for the use of someone other than the individual.
Common Trafficking Scenarios
- Facility operator takes in several individuals at a time. Can be elderly or those with physical, mental health, and/or developmental disabilities.
- Facilities can be portrayed as boarding homes and transitional homes
- Residents are required to turn over EBT cards upon move-in, yet lease agreement includes food and the refrigerator may be padlocked
- Residents placed in several locations, though only one facility is licensed
Common Means of Financial Exploitation:
- Joint accounts that are unknown to residents
- Utilities or leases are in the resident’s name without their knowledge
- Loans taken out in the resident’s name without their knowledge
- Charging extra for “food” & other services that are supposed to be provided
- Demanding EBT & SSI charge cards at move-in
- Residents required to work or provide supervision to other residents
Who is At-Risk?
Seniors/Older Adults: Person 65 years of age or older
Disabled Adults: Person 18 years of age or older mentally or physically incapacitated or has Alzheimer’s Disease or dementia
Residents: Any person receiving treatment or care in any long-term care facility
What Can I Do?
Do you think someone you know may be a victim of Benefits Trafficking? Here are some steps you can take to find out:
Observe Their Environment:
- Is there food in the pantry and/or fridge?
- Are all the utilities on?
- Is the temperature appropriate?
- Compare their living area to the carer’s living area
- Do they have their medications?
- Are there animals and are they cared for?
Questions to Ask:
- Who lives in the residence with the person?
- What is the employment status of all adults in the home?
- What are the sources of income in the home?
- Who owns the home?
- Who provides care for the person?
- Where is medication stored and who administers it?
If you discover or suspect Benefits Trafficking
- If someone is in immediate danger, call 9-1-1
- To ensure the safety of the person, contact the Adult Abuse and Neglect Hotline to report the situation
- To report the situation at a facility or home, contact the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Hotline
- Advocate for the person by contacting a long-term care ombudsman
Identity theft and fraud are crimes in which an impostor gains access to key pieces of personal identifying information (PII) such as a Social Security number (SSN) and driver’s license number and uses them for personal gain or to commit other criminal activities. In the case of true name identity theft, the thief goes beyond stealing the victim’s assets and actually assumes his or her identity. Identity theft may begin with a lost or stolen wallet, pilfered mail, a data breach, a computer virus, phishing, a scam, or paper documents thrown out by an individual or a business and retrieved by a thief (dumpster diving).
Types of Identity Theft Crime
Identity theft and fraud can be a wide variety of crimes committed under different circumstances. These crimes may include:
- check fraud
- credit/debit card fraud
- immigration fraud
- postal fraud
- medical fraud
- outright theft of various kinds (pick pocketing, robbery, burglary, or mugging to gain a victim’s personal information)
- criminal activities ranging from counterfeiting and forgery to using a stolen identity to commit acts of terrorism
It may even involve combining personal information from several victims to create a fictitious identity (synthetic identity theft), which is not always detectable by the consumer(s) whose information was used.Today, criminals continue to find opportunities to exploit their victims through the lack of security measures for protecting personal identifying information. Personal data is widely scattered with much of it outside an individual’s control. Nationwide databases, IT security issues, and continuous requests for Social Security numbers contribute to vulnerability of personal information.
Know Your Rights…
If someone is using your information to open new accounts or make purchases, report it and get help.
If someone steals your identity, you have the right to:
- create a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Identity Theft Report
- place a one-year fraud alert on your credit report
- get free copies of your credit report
- get fraudulent information removed (or “blocked”) from your credit report
- dispute fraudulent or inaccurate information on your credit report
- stop creditors and debt collectors from reporting fraudulent accounts
- get copies of documents related to the identity theft
- stop a debt collector from contacting you
What To Do Right Away:
If you are a victim of identity theft, the FTC recommends these steps:
- File a complaint with the FTC at identitytheft.gov
- Contact one of the three major credit bureaus to place a ‘fraud alert’ on your credit records:
- Equifax, www.Equifax.com, 800-525-6285
- Experian, www.Experian.com, 888-397-3742
- TransUnion, www.TransUnion.com, 800-680-7289
- Contact your financial institutions, and close any financial or credit accounts opened without your permission or tampered with by identity thieves