Posted on March - 28 - 2010
Better Business: In recession, scammers take ripoffs to new level
Tens of millions of Americans fall for consumer scams every year. We have our fair share in the Mid-South. Victims include people of all ages, occupations, incomes and education levels. A local college student lost his financial aid in a Nigerian letter scam. A doctor lost $4,500 in a Facebook scam. New scams have been invented, and old ones adapted, to take advantage of high unemployment, the increasing number of foreclosures and other headlines.
Better Business Bureaus across the nation compiled the following list of common scams and ripoffs in 2009. We heard about all of them from local consumers:
Acai-berry supplements and other “free” trial offers — Consumers complained to the BBB that the free trial actually cost them as much as hundreds of dollars in monthly charges that they couldn’t get stopped.
Stimulus and government grant scams — Offers for worthless assistance in getting government grants bombarded consumers online, over the phone and via e-mail.
Robocalls — The robocallers often claimed that a consumer’s auto warranty was about to expire or offered help in reducing the interest rate on credit cards.
Lottery and sweepstakes scams – A letter arrives with a check that represents a portion of the total winnings. To get the rest, the victim has to deposit the check and then wire hundreds of dollars back to the scammers to cover taxes or some other bogus fee. The check bounces and the consumer is out the money wired.
Job-hunter scams — Phony mystery-shopper or nonexistent government jobs have plagued people looking for work for years, but the crooks have shown a new level of creativity in these times of high unemployment. People need to understand that a job offer isn’t necessarily legitimate just because it appears on Careerbuilder.com or Monster.com.
Mortgage foreclosure rescue or debt assistance – Many families struggling in the current economy are paying hucksters thousands of dollars for assistance in saving their homes or reducing their debts. The help never comes and they end up in an even deeper financial hole.
H1N1 phishing and spam E-mails – A perennial problem, phishing e-mails pop up in in-boxes and can appear to come from a financial institution, a government agency or even the BBB. The goal is to trick victims into divulging sensitive financial information that can be used to commit identity theft or to infect the victim’s computer with viruses and malware. In 2009, phishing e-mails tried to take advantage of public fears about the H1N1 virus and spam e-mails peddled bogus products that would supposedly provide protection against it.
The impact of scams goes far beyond the victims. Every dollar wired to Canada as part of a lottery scam is a dollar that can’t be spent at a local business. And the employee who wired that money or is worried about a roof that’s still leaking because she picked the wrong contractor isn’t going to be focused on the customer at the counter or the task at hand.
Randy Hutchinson is the president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of the Mid-South. Reach him at rhutchinson@bbbmidsouth.org.
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