ALBANY COUNTY — The attorney general calls them “bottom feeders” — she’s referring to the people who have capitalized on fear during the coronavirus crisis to scam and price gouge.

Letitia James said of COVID-19, “It knows no boundaries, no ethnicity, no gender. Unfortunately, it is impacting all of us.”

She said she and her staff have been working from their homes “around the clock to meet the challenges presented by this crisis and protect communities across New York State.”

James spoke on a video call at Thursday’s Albany County press briefing. “We’re seeing scammers and predatory actors,” she said. “I call them bottom feeders, trying to prey on New Yorkers, particularly senior citizens.”

She listed their crimes: “From price gouging of essential goods to marketing and selling fake COVID treatments to scammers trying to get their hands on your stimulus checks, we’ve seen them all.”

Scammers, she said, are fraudulently claiming lotions, potions, and even toothpaste are cures for COVID-19.

“There is no cure and there is no treatment,” said James, with the exception of a trial treatment being conducted for remdesivir. “There is no secret lotion or potion or cure for COVID-19,” she stressed. “So please be wary.”

James said her office has sent out more than 4,000 cease-and-desist orders to businesses for price-gouging essential goods. At the start of the coronavirus outbreak, prices were jacked up on sanitizers and masks, she said, but that has now transitioned to eggs, meat, and toilet paper.

“These goods are essential to our health and safety,” James said, noting that it is illegal in New York to charge “grossly excessive prices for essential goods.”

She went on, “But more importantly, it’s dangerous to your health and safety so we’ve ordered numerous companies to stop marketing and selling these products as cures. We’ve reached out to online platforms to also ask them to remove these posts.”

Additionally, James said, “We’ve gone after scammers pretending to be from the federal government, even from the state government, and in some cases even going door-to-door, claiming they need information — your tax information and your personal information — in order to access your stimulus check, which is false.”

In the Capital Region, James said, scammers have impersonated Troy and Albany police officers “to steal people’s identities and money.” She recommended that residents contact local elected officials to check the legitimacy of anyone coming to their doors.

“We’ve gone after a lot of these scammers because individuals are taking advantage of the anxiety and the fear that exists out there,” she said. “And people want answers and they want solutions and they want cures and they want treatments and they want this to be over and they want to leave their homes.

“I understand. But we’ve got to approach this from a scientific basis. We’ve got to do it in stages. We’ve got to make sure we know the facts.”

On a different front, the attorney general’s office has “basically told debt collectors, ‘Hands off the stimulus money,’” said James. “The stimulus money should be used to pay your mortgage, your rent, to put food on our table.”

She went on, “We contacted 35  mortgage servicers in the state to provide immediate and long-term relief to New York homeowners struggling to pay mortgages.”

Senior citizens who have reverse mortgages are particularly vulnerable, James said. “We’re seeing an uptick in senior citizens having a difficult time repaying taxes as well as interest on these reverse mortgages. And what we want to do is forestall any foreclosures that we saw during the last meltdown in our economy.”

James said she had been working closely with Governor Andrew Cuomo in crafting his executive orders and also enforcing them.

“We’ve provided support to small businesses seeking federal loans and I’ve urged Congress to assure these loans go to small businesses in need, and not multi-million-dollar companies. We will be monitoring that … Small businesses really are the lifeblood of our economy and they employ millions of New Yorkers.”

On nursing homes, which have been hard hit by the coronavirus, James said, “The governor appointed me to work with the Department of Health to ensure there is compliance with his executive orders and the law in the state of New York. These seniors are fragile.

“We historically and constitutionally have an office of Medicaid fraud, focusing on fraud and focusing on abuse of nursing-home residents.”

James thanked Cuomo for appointing a task force to ensure nursing-home residents “are separated from positive COVID residents, that there’s sufficient PPE,” she said of personal protective equipment. Also, that staff is regularly tested for the disease, that nursing homes are sanitized, and “that loved ones of residents are informed.”

The role of the attorney general’s office, said James, is to respond to complaints, inspect nursing homes, and to see their protocols are consistent with the governor’s executive orders.

James encouraged the public to call her office to report scams, price-gouging, or problems with nursing homes. The phone number to call is 1-800-771-7755.

James said, “When we come out of the other side of this mountain, we’ll come out united and stronger than ever before.”

Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen commended James and said, it is “important to stress that there is no magic bullet to prevent you from getting COVID-19.” She reiterated her oft-repeated list of protocols to guard against the disease: staying home, hand-washing, practicing social distancing, and wearing a mask in public.

“When people are frightened,” said Whalen, “they want to be able to buy something or take a recommendation they feel will assist them … Misinformation can hurt you and can cost you needless money.”

Whalen again recommended that people seek information from reliable sources and named her department’s website, the website of the state’s Department of Health, and the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.