By Neena Strichart
Publisher
It is rare these days to listen to a radio program, read a newspaper or see a news broadcast on television without hearing about the latest scam or some sort of fraudulent activity being perpetrated on some poor, unsuspecting citizen. I feel blessed to have a bit of a suspicious nature, therefore maybe making me a bit of a smaller target. Nonetheless, even the most aware and careful individuals need to use extra caution and listen to their inner voices who are telling them that something is amiss when presented with an unbelievable opportunity or over-the-top crisis demanding big dollars on short notice.
This year, two of my favorite ladies were victims of scams. Today, I will share one of those incidents with you folks, and I promise to fill you in on the other in our next issue or two.
This first particular scam took place a few months ago by telephone when a man called my “friend” and informed her that her 2002 Honda Accord was out of warranty and that it would behoove her to purchase an extension policy. Not wanting to be a burden to her children should her car break down, the elderly widow accepted the advice of the stranger on the phone and signed up with him, giving him not only her personal data, but her credit card information as well, therefore authorizing the purchase of a policy costing thousands of dollars. A few weeks later my lady friend received paperwork in the mail detailing the new warranty along with a small bottle of supplemental engine enhancement liquid for her car. Pondering the situation further, and thinking she may have goofed, my friend gave me a call and filled me in on the details of what took place. My first thought was, “Why in the world would someone offer a warranty on a car that was over a decade old?” and my second thought was that it was probably a scam.
I suggested to my friend that she go to Long Beach Honda and show the information to someone in their service department. I figured the experts would know what was true and what was just out-and-out fraud. Sure enough, she took my advice and went to Honda, where she met Alex Viray, the service advisor. Dear Alex informed her that the warranty was pretty much useless and told her she should try to cancel the policy. Coming back to me with the information she received from Honda, we got my hubby Steve on the case. He called the scammy out-of-state salesperson, and complained that the company preyed on the elderly and insisted they cancel the policy. The man, who by the way was the one who originally sold the policy to my friend, insisted that it was all done legally, but they would refund her money once they received the bottle of liquid back along with a written statement by our elderly friend asking to cancel the transaction.
To make a long story short, my friend sent the letter and the liquid back to the company and waited several weeks for the refund to appear on her credit card statement. When it didn’t happen, she then went to her bank, spoke to a representative there who looked into the matter, found the company on the fraud list, got a full refund for my friend and cancelled the credit card number so nothing else could be charged to that account. A new card was issued shortly, and my friend promises from now on she will not talk to strangers on the phone. Lesson learned?
More on the same topic: A day or so ago, I received the following message from our Signal Hill Police Chief Michael Langston regarding scams: Friends, when you receive the email from Chase Bank or any bank telling you to log on because you are the rightful owner of $11M in funds that have been miraculously deposited into your account….delete the email and don’t log on to your account through the email to see if you really have $11M in your account. You don’t have $11M in your account, and if you try to log on through the email, you will not have anything in your account shortly thereafter. A message from your friendly public servant!
