Finding fresh material each week for her podcast is rarely a struggle for Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office Chief Criminal Investigator Kristina Perkins.
“It’s unfortunately easy to find content for Scam Squad because there’s so much out there,” Perkins told the Sun. “It’s usually just a variation of the same type of scam … happening everywhere.”
Perkins’ guests on Scam Squad—available online through Apple Podcasts and YouTube, and regularly aired as a KTMS (990 AM) radio segment—range between Central Coast locals and callers from out of state who vent about their experiences falling prey to scammers online, over the phone, or even in person.
“The reality is,” Perkins said, “if someone heard about a scam that’s happening in Arizona, I guarantee that scam’s happening here too.”
Since the recent launch of the District Attorney’s Office’s new email address dedicated to collecting reports of scams or suspected scams from county residents, Perkins has reviewed dozens of inquiries from community members she may not have heard from otherwise, she explained.
“We’ve been live for about a month, and I’ve received about 50 emails regarding scams,” Perkins said. “I know that phone calls, for some people, it’s just not the most effective way of communicating. … Everyone has their preferred way of communicating.”
The first message Perkins reviewed after the email address debuted in early May was from a local suspecting that they received a fake invoice from a source impersonating a county Planning Commission official.
Within less than a week, the District Attorney’s Office and Planning and Development Department collectively received more than a dozen messages about the same scam. The subject line on most of the emails residents reported receiving read: “Payment Request—Application Review & Approval Fee.”
The county sent out a public service announcement to warn the community about the scam on May 6. As of May 27, Perkins said that, fortunately, she hadn’t heard of anyone falling for it.
Alongside emailing reportfraud@countyofsb.org, the public can still opt to use the District Attorney’s Office’s phone hotline for scam reporting, which has been active as long as Perkins has worked for the agency.
She joined the investigators team in 2013 and became chief criminal investigator in 2021.
“I knew that there was a large part of the population out there that we could probably tap into if I gave email as an option to contact,” Perkins said.
While the active phone hotline, (805) 568-2442, leads directly to voicemail instructions, Perkins and other office investigators look into every message the department receives, she said.
Outside of her work as a professional investigator and podcast host, Perkins occasionally leads educational presentations about scam trends and other types of fraud topics when invited to speak at local organizations. Past groups she’s collaborated with include the American Association of University Women’s (AAUW) Santa Maria Branch.
Perkins hopes her ongoing work on raising awareness about scams helps prevent as many perpetrators from succeeding as possible.
“I’ve had phone calls with people from other states that say they’re the victims of fraud and that the reason they found out is they found my podcast and were able to identify something that I had specifically talked about,” said Perkins, who brought up a past caller from Utah as an example.
The caller was victimized by a romance scam, Perkins explained, which left her emotionally devastated and with $60,000 less in her bank account.
“She had suspected maybe this was something that was happening, but she didn’t put everything together—she really didn’t want to,” Perkins said, “but by listening to the podcast, it made her realize, ‘I’m the victim of a scam.’”
Highlights
• The Kiwanis Club of Santa Maria awarded a total of $45,220 in scholarships between 35 local high school students and one college student during its annual Scholarship Dinner on May 25. The organization selected its scholarship recipients—who received between $1,000 and $2,000 each—from applicants across the Santa Maria Valley. Visit santamariakiwanis.org for more info.
• The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors recently announced its selection of Jana Petersen as the county’s next executive officer, following Mona Miyasato’s planned retirement this summer. Petersen currently serves as the Boulder County administrator in Colorado, a role she’s held since 2020. Fourth District Supervisor Bob Nelson described Petersen as “a seasoned leader who has ably led her organization through many of the same challenges and opportunities that we have faced in recent years and will continue to face in the future.”
Reach Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in June 4 – June 11, 2026.
