John Cannon, outreach representative with the Office of the Attorney General Todd Rokita, speaks to the Warsaw Common Council Monday about fraud and unclaimed property. Photo by David Slone.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Updates on what the Indiana Attorney General’s Office does and has been doing since Todd Rokita became the attorney general in 2021 were provided to the Warsaw Common Council at their meeting Monday, July 17.

John Cannon, outreach representative with the Office of the Attorney General Todd Rokita, said, “Before he became attorney general, there were about 8.7 billion scam calls that would come to our Hoosier phone numbers. And, so far, he has reduced that to 7.4 billion each year. So, we’re on the hunt to stop spam calls and spoof calls or whatever you may call them.”

Another item he wanted to make sure the council knew about was that the Attorney General’s Office has an advisory division that can provide the city with advice on how to implement law, rules and regulations after July 1.

“Every year the legislature … come up with some quirky things that sometimes are hard for cities and towns to implement. So, we do offer that to you … if you have any questions or concerns about how something is implemented or how things are supposed to be put in place with the rules and regulations. Our office can help you with that and give you an opinion on what the law actually means and how you are to implement those,” Cannon said.

Moving on to the unclaimed property division, he said they have about $7 million in unclaimed property that they would like to get back to Hoosiers.

Cannon encouraged everyone, specifically the clerk-treasurer’s office, to check at least once a month for unclaimed property for the city.

There is a piece of property in Delaware County worth $1 million that hasn’t been rightfully claimed yet. “And then we go all the way down to $.57 cents that is owed to somebody that has not claimed it yet. That’s the wide range of unclaimed property, so please check that out,” he said.

Another thing the office deals with is Medicaid fraud.

“Last year, we recouped $263 million in fraud in the Medicaid program throughout the state and it went right back in the Medicaid process for the needy and we took it from the greedy, which is a good thing, and those folks have been prosecuted and they will continue to be,” Cannon said.

Each Indiana county has at least two Medicaid fraud investigators, he said.

“So if you know of somebody or know of something that doesn’t seem right — someone who receives Medicaid who shouldn’t, or somebody that maybe is frauding the system, you can let me know and I can get that over to your fraud investigators here in your county,” Cannon stated.

The office also does scam prevention. The biggest one out there, he explained, is when a person gets a letter in the mail from the IRS.

“Because they learned that if they call you, you’re smart enough to know that the IRS won’t call you, they will send you a letter. Now, they’re sending you letters and then you call the number and then they want all your information. Remember, the IRS will send you two letters — the actual letter of what you need to call about and then the code number that you must use when you dial in to get through. So please don’t fall for that scam,” Cannon said.

The Indiana Department of Revenue will never call someone and it has the same process of sending a letter and the code separately.

Cannon left material with Clerk-Treasurer Lynne Christiansen for the public to pick up about unclaimed property and scams.