It's a small office: one computer and one telephone tucked behind Cash Register 8 at the Coral Springs Super Wal-Mart. The staff is a pair of volunteers, clad in navy blue shirts with a gold logo: Seniors vs. Crime. 
Not the imposing image you'd expect from a group that recovered more than $182,000 last year for local residents. 

Welcome to the Coral Springs outpost of Seniors vs. Crime, a program the state attorney general's office started in 1989. Since then, the project has produced 35 offices throughout the state. 

No problem is too small. No company too daunting. No crooked contractor too shifty to escape their watch. 

And now the volunteers, also known as ''senior sleuths,'' are coming to a neighborhood near you. New offices opened earlier this year in Hollywood and North Miami Beach. Administrators hope to start work soon on offices in south Miami-Dade and the Keys. 

''Anybody that comes through that door needing assistance we don't turn away,'' said Paul Yeager, deputy regional director in South Florida. 
The program was started in 1989 to combat wrongs that fall short of being crimes, like faulty car repairs or unfinished roofs. Sometimes, people bring the sleuths real crimes, which they refer to police. 

Volunteers are now trained to run local offices where seniors could get help in person. 

Seniors, especially those living alone, are common targets for con artists or unscrupulous businesses. 

''There are a lot of lonely, isolated seniors out there just looking for a friendly person to speak to, and they are the ideal for other individuals to commit fraud against,'' said Edith Lederberg, executive director of Broward's Aging & Disability Resource Center. 

Today, the program has more than 2,000 volunteers throughout Florida, said regional director Wayne J. Picone. The offices typically pair up with local police and try to be in easily accessible locations. 

Seniors vs. Crime is a nonprofit organization, and 95 percent of those involved are volunteers, he said. Its money comes from donations and money the attorney general's office recovers in cases affecting the elderly, Picone said. 
The program is a special project of the attorney general's office, with its own board of directors, he said. 

Volunteers receive two days of training, Picone said, when they are taught proper procedure, what they can and cannot do, and which agencies to contact in different situations, like how to find contractors' licenses or the person in charge of building permits. 

Getting people help is often ''a matter of knowing where to look,'' Picone said. 
Each office is different, based on the area it serves. Hours vary based on demand. North Miami Beach has Spanish and Creole speakers. 
That office has 15 volunteers whose cases have included a repair company that lost a customer's portable radio, and a woman who bought a mattress online but got something of lower quality than she expected, supervisor Tom Carney said. 

The radio owner got a new radio, and the mattress buyer got about $2,000 back, he said. 

The volunteers also encourage people who are planning a big purchase to call the office first, so they can research the seller. 

''We want to prevent people from becoming victims,'' Carney said. 
The Coral Springs office said that last year it worked 152 cases, recovering more than $182,000 in cash or services. Through September of this year, the total was more than $92,000 after 85 cases. 

No one with a problem is turned away. 

Daniel and Lucy Antosia, both in their 80s and of Deerfield Beach, walked into the Coral Springs office last Wednesday because they had a problem, and the couple had heard that this was a place that helped seniors. 

Lucy Antosia has a disabled parking permit, but it fell off the rear-view mirror of the couple's 2002 Toyota Camry. They got a $254 parking ticket. 
''We almost panicked. Where are we gonna come up with $254?'' Daniel Antosia said. 

Yeager and volunteer Fay Staub, 79, were able to help. They helped the couple photocopy the parking pass, wrote an explanation of what happened and told the couple where to send it. 

Moments later, Staub was back to work on another case. ''We're very happy whenever we get a case closed and settled,'' she said.