The state of consumer affairs in Virginia is encouraging on some fronts and challenging on others, according to Andres Alvarez, manager of the Virginia Office of Consumer Affairs in Richmond.

Though consumers are more informed than in the past and thus more immune to scams, certain sections of the population, particularly the elderly, continue to be the targets of aggressive scam artists, said Alvarez, who goes by Andy.

His staff of 33 investigators, regulatory officers, dispute resolution specialists, registration analysts, consumer educators and clerical support personnel has also seen an increasing number of fraudulent transactions through the Internet, posing, he said, "an interesting challenge in terms of establishing proper jurisdiction for the investigation of complaints."

Nonetheless, consumers are better protected by the commonwealth now than ever before, said Alvarez, who has been with the department since October 1998.

His office co-developed the Virginia Consumer Portal on the Internet, online since last summer, which allows consumers to identify the proper agency with jurisdiction over their complaint through the use of a topic selector.

"It leverages our ability to provide consumer advice or initiate the investigation of a complaint by providing information about our services 24 hours a day," Alvarez said.

The 37-year-old native of Colombia, South America, said he also is proud of the professionalism and dedication of his staff, which handles more than 50,000 calls a year to its toll-free consumer protection hotline while maintaining an average caller wait time of less than 19 seconds.

"Our investigators and regulatory compliance officers handle almost 5,000 cases a year with an overall closure rate of more than 85 percent," Alvarez said. "And our community outreach efforts include presentations to groups and organizations throughout Virginia."

Alvarez, himself, has even resolved several complaints from Spanish-speaking residents, even though taking consumer calls is not in his job description.

He is currently working on a way to utilize the Web in the complaint intake process, which would make consumer advice and intake of complaints accessible round the clock, as well as handle registration for the more than 9,000 entities it regulates.

Alvarez and his parents, who left their native Colombia when he was 16, eventually ended up in Hampton Roads. He graduated from Old Dominion with a bachelor's degree in business administration in 1987 and received his M.B.A. in 1989. He recently married Maureen McFarland, a schoolteacher in New Kent County, who is a graduate of Bowdoin College in Maine and the College of William and Mary.

Alvarez was administration bureau commander and planning director for the Portsmouth Police Department from 1990-98. In 1997, he won the Portsmouth Police Department award for Outstanding Police Performance. Also that year, he won second place in the U.S. Conference of Mayors Excellence in Community Policing competition and honorable mention in the National League of Cities' City Livability Awards competition.

His hobbies include mountain biking and martial arts.