Laws ‘Not Getting Enforced’ Consumer Protection Given Low Priority, Lawmaker Says

Spokane has some privacy problems of its own.

Rep. Brad Benson, R-Spokane, said identity theft, fraud and forgery cases are not aggressively investigated here.

Benson worries that even if legislators pass laws to protect consumer safety, the restrictions will do little to stop criminals.

“We’re passing laws; they’re not getting enforced,” he said.

Consumer protection is a low priority for police around the state, according to Benson.

Sgt. Larry Adams of the Spokane Police Department said his office does not have enough detectives to handle the number of reports victims file.

During the year Adams has worked in the consumer fraud department, he has seen several hundred fraud and forgery complaints. The number is too great for the three officers in his division to handle every case, he said. They have to be selective.

Cases include fraud over the telephone, by door-to-door salesmen, through business transactions or through the computer.

Adams said these cases result in a huge amount of frustration for victims.

“There’s only a small portion that we can actually investigate and make an arrest on,” he said.

Adams’ office receives about 10 fraud or forgery reports each day.

Cases that relate to a string of crimes by the same suspects often get priority. Adams sometimes chooses cases with more financial loss over those with smaller sums. He said he also gives priority to elderly victims.

Adams is skeptical about whether legislation would solve the problem. Adding more police resources wouldn’t help either, he said.

“Even if we had many more detectives to work on these, the courts aren’t set up adequately to handle it,” Adams said, adding that courts have to prioritize as well.

He said corrections should be made at the business level. Store employees should be more careful, he said, checking customers’ identifications when they use credit cards. “What needs to be changed is the ability for the criminal to so easily defraud banks and stores and everything else,” Adams said.