Ken Westbrook, founder and CEO of a non-profit organization whose mission is to fight online fraud and scams, will be guest speaker at the May 14 meeting of the Lake of the Woods Democratic Club.
The meeting will take place in Classroom II of the LOW Community Center. The program will start at 1:30 p.m. following a social time beginning at 1 p.m. All are welcome to attend.
The mission of the Stop Scams Alliance is to significantly reduce scams in the United States through a comprehensive, systemic approach involving public-private partnership and cross-sector cooperation from technology, telecom, financial institutions, consumer advocacy groups, and government. The focus is to stop scams at the source, before they reach the consumer in the first place.
According to the Stop Scams Alliance’s web site, there are 21 million fraud victims in the United States each year, costing consumers $196 billion. The average loss per victim is $20,699.
The FBI has reported a 20-fold increase in losses to scams since 2015. Losses ballooned 26 percent between 2024 and 2025.
Westbrook is a Distinguished Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, one of the nation’s most respected nonpartisan think tanks and policy forums.
He served as an executive in the Intelligence Community (IC), specializing in analysis and information management. He received numerous IC awards and subsequently held senior positions with two Fortune 500 software firms, co-invented a patented security technology, and created and taught a course in Information Management at Georgetown University.