|
Recommended:
books
Recommended
AV product:
| |
Con Men in Your Church, Gym or Grocery Store
Trouble in River City.
Not all scams and scammers appear in email, a letter or a phone
call. Some approach you where and when you least expect them: in church,
at school, in a grocery store or gym.
Below are links to report from victims of these scams.
Here's how it works:
-
The scammer needs to gain your confidence, your trust, so
that you will give him money or access to something (like your bank account,
house, workplace, etc.) that you would not ordinarily do.
-
He tells you a story, shows you a document, give you
something that appears to be valuable to hold for him as collateral (such as
a check, a jewelry, car, etc.), or has other people agree with him
(testimonials from confederates who are part of the scam)
-
Once he has access to your bank account or house, money,
your signature or confidential information; he is gone and can not be
reached.
-
The collateral turns of to be worthless or he did not have
legal ownership of it.
This type of scam has been around for generations. Rent "The
Music Man" with Robert Preston for a classic Hollywood movie version of how a
con scam works. Classic examples are con men selling the Brooklyn Bridge to
tourists in New York, or selling swampland in Florida to property speculators.
What can you do to defend yourself from scams, frauds and
identity theft? Whether you think you have been the victim of a fraud or scam or
want to be proactive in protecting yourself, here is a list.
Examples and victim's stories:
- The Total Gym scam -
offering to sell you something far cheaper than normal retail price, so you
can resell it at a profit
- God, Trust and Money
- Did a stranger approach you on the street, needing to find "two honest
Americans, to fulfill the conditions of a will", so he could inherit a huge
sum of money?
|
