Wichita ? The state attorney general’s office has found more than 600 incidents of elderly or disabled people being scammed since it began concentrating on the problem last year.

Atty. Gen. Phill Kline’s office began earmarking scam complaints from elderly and disabled people last March. It has flagged 667 such reports through January.

Since the attorney general officially formed the Vulnerable Adults Task Force last November, it has recovered $3,688 dollars for consumers through January.

One victim was an 82-year-old Kansas City-area woman who had dementia. The woman, who lives on a fixed income, donated about $2,000 to nonprofit groups who continued to contact her. The woman couldn’t remember that she had already donated.

A member of her family noticed and called the task force. When it contacted the nonprofit groups, “the legitimate groups were very quick to return the money,” said Whitney Watson, director of communications and personnel for the attorney general’s office.

Mary Tritsch, associate state director of AARP Kansas, said one of the most prevalent scams hitting seniors was lottery solicitations. Seniors are told by phone or letter that they’ve won a lottery — often in a foreign country — but that they have to send in a portion of their winnings to receive the prize.

“People are falling for it,” Tritsch said.

Her message to consumers: “If you have to send in money, you didn’t win anything. You shouldn’t have to clean out your bank account to win a prize.”

The task force has not tracked complaints long enough to identify any specific pattern of fraud. But it hopes to do that after the first quarter of this year.

When he announced the task force, Kline said scam artists often targeted Kansans because of their trusting natures. Senior citizens, in particular, are sometimes too embarrassed to tell anyone they’ve fallen victim to a scam, he said.

Kline said that it especially upset him to hear about seniors getting scammed.

“These are folks who worked hard to raise a family,” he said. “They deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labor. It’s heart-wrenching, some of the things that happen.”