More Columbians getting swindled

Columbia is getting hit by more scammers.

Or perhaps just more folks are just complaining about them.

Either way, complaints about fraud from Columbia grew 17 percent last year, according to data released this month.

More than 1,770 gripes were filed with public and private authorities that send data to the Federal Trade Commission.

Sounds like time to give some refreshers on avoiding scams. You’ll find many here.

Identity theft, the largest fraud, rose by 10 percent mainly from spikes in stolen government and employment-related documents. That growth is double the national norm from last year.

Remember to check your credit reports at least once a year. Get them for free here.

Other fraud  — everything from home shopping to sweepstakes scams — rose 21 percent, helped by a near doubling in the number of complaints in foreign-money offers.

You might know them better as those e-mails from a stranger who claims, usually in broken English, to need your help to recover millions of dollars from a dead (take your pick) relative, banker, plane-crash victim, president, monarch.   

But not all these pitches come at the behest of a lawyer for some dead millionaire.

I got one last week for an undisclosed “investment proposition” from Fred Wani, who’s on the “senior staff with a reputable Financial Investment Company here in UK.”

Fred tries to assure me this is legit: “Let me reiterate that I am very aware of the porosity of the Web which a lot of people have abused and used as means for scams etc. So I would completely understand your plight were you to consider this in the same category...”

I replied. Let’s see what happens.

But if you get an e-mail like this, hit delete.