Beware of new age scammers (11/13/04)

The scams just keep on coming.

A whole industry seems to have developed in this country built around the notion of ripping people off, and unfortunately the folks who are most frequently targeted are those who can least afford it.

One of the latest is the use of “credit counselors” who use their telephone contacts with victims to elicit enough information to perpetrate identity theft. The “counselors,” who sometimes abuse the name “credit union” when they advertise themselves, have taken to placing newspaper ads in small town papers, particularly in the South and Midwest.

Those ads usually arrive via fax machine. They list a billing address, and they offer payment by way of credit card.

Unfortunately, the billing address is usually a phony and the credit card number is usually stolen.

But if the ad is run, it attracts new fish to a toll-free number where a “counselor” tries to get as much personal information and as many credit card numbers from callers as possible.

We’ve taken to rejecting all such ads, and we receive dozens of them each week.

Most recently, one of the “credit counselors” took to using The Commercial Review’s street address on his ad placement order. When we called the toll-free number to complain that he was using our address as a false bricks-and-mortar location, he claimed he was really based in Elwood.

Trouble is, the general manager of the Elwood paper says the address being used in that town is a vacant lot adjacent to the newspaper’s offices.

You get the picture.

The short solution to this is not to give personal information, especially credit card information, over the phone to people you don’t know.

Anyone who calls you and starts pressing for that sort of information is automatically suspicious and deserves to be hung up on.

This is one of those situations where rudeness is not only justifiable, it’s probably the best policy. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]