The Kiwanis Club of Swainsboro held its weekly meeting Tuesday night, September 3, at the Rustic Grill at 7 p.m. With President Cheryl Goodman presiding, they had 17 in attendance including one guest, Joelle Romanchik-Cerpovicz. A pound cake donated by Bobbie Daughtry and baked by Petite Garrett was won by Wanda Ellis and Dianna Wedincamp won the Domino’s pizza donated by Domino's. The program was presented by Kiwanian Jeff Palmer, Senior Credit Analysist at Morris Bank in Dublin. Jeff talked about the increase in the number of online scams as our money increasingly moves around electronically. The banks are responding by using multiple layers of authentication, especially with large and unusual transactions. He talked about account takeovers, “check washing,” and even “blackmail” scams. A vast majority of scams can be handled by using common sense and remember “if it appears to be too good to be true, it probably is.” Hints provided by Jeff included: change passwords often and make them hard to guess, don’t share any sensitive or personal information unless you can verify who is asking, hang up on suspicious callers and watch for “spoof” calls, don’t open up suspicious links in email, shred sensitive information before discarding, and check bank account and credit card balances often. The Franklin Memorial Library has a table set up in their lobby that has a number of pamphlets about various scams and how to avoid them.
