More than 5,000 Nebraskans claimed they were the victim of a scam last year.

With the help of a group of college interns, most of them were able to get back what was rightfully theirs.

The State Attorney General's office teams up with a hard-working group of college students to take down scams at their source.

When Libby Hallgren answers her phone at the Attorney General's office, she's ready for anything.

Consumer Mediator Libby Hallgren says, "It's really a broad spectrum of complaints. We also deal with telemarketing complaints and we also do a lot with scams"

Hallgren is a Consumer Mediator for the State. The UNL Senior, along with her college counterparts, fields calls from Nebraskans upset with a bad deal and attempts to solve the problem.

Hallgren says, "We act as impartial third party mediators between the two of them to try and get the complaint resolved."

Last year, the Center returned more than $1 million to Nebraskans once taken by scammers.

So far this year, they've recovered more than $140,000.

State Attorney General Jon Bruning says, "We want to make sure that Nebraskans have a place to go where can get some relief."

Besides money recovery, the Attorney General's Office also has the power to prosecute the scam artists.

Bruning adds, "If it's somebody that's committed a crime, we can hand it over to our criminal prosecutors and proceed from there."

Volunteers take hundreds of calls from consumers every week. Helping those who've been victims of a scam makes it all worth it.

Hallgren says, "We get thank you letters all the time from people saying thank you so much. I tried to get this resolved for so long and really the only reason that we got anything done was because your office and your involvement in it so it feels fantastic when you can get the consumers' money back and make their day a little brighter."

And stop scams at their source.

You can find out more about the Mediation Center by clicking on any of the links below.