AARP Wyoming and Cowgirl Allyson Fertig Team Up To Fight Fraud
AARP Wyoming has enlisted the help of Glendo native and Wyoming Women’s Basketball Star Allyson Fertig to spread AARP’s message on stopping scams and fraud.
Fertig has begun recording scam alerts and offering the public tips on avoiding scams and fraud with the AARP Fraud Watch Network. Her first video went live on Friday, Aug. 16 and subsequent videos will be available on AARP Wyoming’s Facebook page (facebook.com/aarpwy), as well being distributed through the morning coffee break on the Cowboy State Daily. The videos, which feature Fertig offering scam alerts from various locations around the athletic department, will also soon be seen on the video board during Wyoming football and women’s basketball games.
This agreement is unique as it was the first Name-Image-Likeness (NIL) agreement facilitated by Wyoming Sports Properties involving a student-athlete. Through NIL agreements, student-athletes are allowed by the NCAA to make money by endorsing or advertising products, or services. This change in NCAA legislation took place in 2021.
“These videos will offer impact to Wyoming fans by giving them an opportunity to see our athletes off the field and court using their personality to promote AARP Wyoming’s message,” says Canon Flores of Wyoming Sports Properties. ”AARP Wyoming has been a great partner of ours and has embraced the NIL space helping show how recognizable brands can engrain themselves with student-athletes to make an impact beyond the dollar.”
This is the second NIL deal AARP Wyoming has executed, the first being a scam alert video produced in 2022 with the Wyoming Cowboy offensive line and Andrew Peasley in 2022. That video was seen over 28,000 times on AARP Wyoming’s Facebook page.
About Fertig
Fertig’s college career has been impressive, headlined by two All-Mountain West selections and two Academic All-Mountain West selections. Last season, Fertig averaged 14.3 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 1.64 blocks per game. She led the league with her 60% field goal percentage and her 13 double-doubles.
As a prep, Fertig was a two-time Gatorade Player of The Year in Wyoming, in addition to a four-time Wyoming All State honoree and three-time state champion for Douglas High School.
“Working with AARP has been a positive experience for me because of their willingness to let me have creative freedom with the prompts they provided me,” Fertig says. “AARP made it easy to work with them because of their great communication, participation, and enthusiasm towards the NIL deal they had arranged for me. While working with AARP I was educated in the importance of being aware of past, present, and future scams and I am now equipped with resources to share with my friends, family, and Wyoming fans to stay safe from fraud.”
About AARP’s Scam Prevention Work
Scam and Fraud Prevention is an important part of AARP’s work, which is performed through its FraudWatch Network. In addition to distributing weekly scam alerts and developing fraud identification training programs for the financial services and retailers at the request of the FTC, AARP also offers a sign-up for weekly Watchdog alerts at: https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/.
According to the Consumer Sentinel Network’s Data Book, published by the FTC in Feb. of 2022, Wyomingites were hit for $7.8 million in fraud losses in 2021, with a median fraud loss of $500 per event. Perhaps more troubling is the number of consumer dollars lost in Wyoming almost doubled over the most recent two-year period and is triple the number of reported losses in 2019.
“Older adults are disproportionately affected by financial exploitation,” says AARP Wyoming State Director Sam Shumway. “Although older people make up just 12 percent of the population, they constitute a full 30 percent of the victims of consumer fraud crime.”
Shumway says he hopes enlisting Fertig to share scam alerts will open up AARP’s scam prevention tops to a younger demographic. He notes that while older adults are disproportionately impacted by scammers, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) data suggests, 41% of those who reported a fraud loss to the FTC last year were under the age of 30.
For more information on the AARP FraudWatch Network, go to aarp.org/fraudwatchnetwork.
