(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division reports it handled more than four-thousand complaints last year, marking the second straight year with an increase. Attorney General Brenna Bird says complaints involving used cars and car repairs topped the list at 783 complaints. “Whether it’s faulty repair work or a car that wasn’t what they thought it would be,” She says. One person called after they said they had the oil changed in their car, but the shop forgot to put the new oil in and the engine was wrecked. Complaints about imposters pretending to be someone they aren’t were second on the list.

“Everything from a fake job offer that you won the lottery, but you have to pay some money to collect the prize,” she says. “And there’s even some that run a long con, is what I’m going to call it, con artists doing a romance scam. So they target someone and then build a relationship with them all online, never in person. And what they do is eventually get that person to give them money.” A-G Bird says be wary of unsolicited messages and avoid sending money electronically to someone you don’t know. Cryptocurrency A-T-M’s have become another way people try to scam you out of your money.

“These are machines that you put cash into and it goes into a crypto wallet, scammers are using that,” Bird says. “Sometimes they’re in a foreign country, so you put that in their crypto wallet and they get your money right away. In fact, it got so bad and we found so many people that had been ripped off in Iowa, we are suing those machines, and the legislature passed a law to make it easier for people to get their money back.”

Bird says if you think you have been a victim of fraud you can call her office at 1-888-777-4590 or you can file a complaint online at IowaAttorneyGeneral.gov.