Con Artists Appear in Numbers During Economic Downturns
April 22, 2010 · Print This Article
Economic hard times bring out the criminals. Crime rates almost always rise during a recession and it is because people get desperate. With the U.S. unemployment rate hovering at 10 percent, consumers need to be aware of the increasing numbers of scams and scam artists operating.
One of the most important steps consumers can take to protect themselves is being alert as to how and where they spend money. Scam artists like to prey on the desperate and like to offer great deals that sound appealing on the surface. For example, some scams involve making job offers. That may sound pretty good until discovering a fee needs to be paid up front.
This is one of the top scams being perpetrated because scammers target people based on their needs many times. The job offer scams are particularly distressing because the criminals tell people desperate for a job they need to pay a fee for a credit check. Instead the consumer’s credit card is charged and there is no job and no credit check.
The Better Business Bureau is warning people to be alert to possible scams. The best way to protect yourself is to be wary of any transaction that requires paying an upfront fee. Most legitimate companies don’t require a fee for things like running credit reports because a consumer is entitled to a free one each year.
Another common scam is one that involves a scam artist offering a way to help a consolidate or lower debt. Once again the scammer requires a fee up front. The criminal collects the fee as cash or as a credit card charge and the scammer is never seen again.
Yet another frequent scam is connected with promises of helping a business or person obtain stimulus funds. Websites offering government grants have always been around but there is a new desperation in the marketplace today due to unemployment and foreclosures.
There are ways to protect yourself from becoming a victim of a scam. For example, you can make sure you read the fine print on anything you are thinking about signing. The old adage is so applicable today. If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is too true.
Consumers can also avoid verbal agreements or arrangements. A legitimate business will put all agreements in writing. If you decide to answer an advertisement then you it is important to make sure you use caution at all times. Ads that promise easy fixes for debt problems or promises ways you can make money quickly and with little effort should be avoided. There are no easy fixes in life unless you win the lottery and the chances of that are quite slim.
Speaking of lotteries…that is yet another scam. Con artists will claim they have a check that belongs to you, and in order to collect it all you need to do is send a “processing fee”. These kinds of scams are often connected with claims the consumer has won a contest or lottery of some kind.
All scams should be reported to the Better Business Bureau and your state’s attorney general’s office. The best defense against consumer scams is education.
Related Articles
- 3 Easily Avoidable Credit Pitfalls There are so many credit problems out there that it can feel like there is nothing you can do to avoid bad credit. You
- Economic Optimism Is Not Unfounded Given the way the market has been receding into a potential recession, it may seem obvious that everything appears to be going in the wrong
- Bottlenecked Flow of Credit Inhibits Growth The amount of credit that is flowing to the companies operating in America is currently drying up at a pace that has not been seen
- Is It Time For Credit Counseling? There comes a time when we all need to swallow our pride and seek help. While such an action might not be that big of
- Stocks Pare Gains After Fed Statement As the Dow Jones dropped into the red again, the stock paired morning gains. Acknowledging the fact the economy was still weakened, the Federal
See all three of your credit reports and credit scores with your 7-day FREE Privacy Matters 1-2-3 trial membership.
In 76 Countries Being Gay Is a Crime [Awful Things]
Well, nobody likes them, that's for sure. Except maybe British media.
every music video has ninjas in them, they’re just better ninjas than these ones
Advance-fee fraud – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
well you know, they take people from a healthy wholesome life of manual outdoor farm-work to miserable existence of factory worker.
16:50 Peter “But, if we do, reviews—should they be lightweight or heavy and rely on postpublication
peer review? Should authors and readers know the identity of
reviewers?”
props man good stuff!
This is very informtive.. thank you Ms.Sied
I like your question because it opens the floor for a philosophical debate.
I think that business and ethics do indeed exist together… sometimes. It really depend on which direction your moral compass is swinging whether or not you as an individual will agree that the business practice is ethical.
I think that many businesses make a strong claim to ethical practices as a marketing point of pride. That would be a way of illustrating your Milton Freidman's point of the market weeding out unethical practices.
The mafia, politics, large corporate greed, and embezzlement are all still examples of how the unethical route works and is very much entrenched in our free market. It seems that unethical business practices make more money faster than ethical business practice. Things like hiring illegals and not paying taxes sure do increase the revenue streams. Just a couple of examples.
But then again we are talking about ethics and the heart and soul of ethics is behavior and consequence. So I think that law is what keeps business practices ethical or we would still be living in a world with a feudal system, slavery, 14 hour work days, no unions, no safety standards, and on and on.
Living in a democracy, it is the people who make the laws. In our society we are both democratic and capitalistic. So in essence, the law is created by the market. There are businesses that lobby hard to sway the representatives to create law in their favor. On and on the circle goes.
So I think my answer to the question is this. Business and ethics can most certainly exist together because business is just an act of man. It depends on the man who is running the business whether or not it will be ran ethically.
just like your christian liar bush! asshole! cuccinelli is a facist nazi ignorant pig. i guess you helped put him and mcd in office! loser!
DAMN.. i really wouldn’t ask for a 20… u don’t even know me dude… so don’t fuck with me
The complainant flagged down a Houston Police Department Officer and … HPD and University Police searched the area for the suspect with negative …
Filename : Crime Alert Agg. Robbery 08-13-08.pdf
Fullpath : /PDFFiles/TSU Police Department/Crime Alert Agg. Robbery 08-13-08.pdf
Publisher : tsu.edu
Found at Monday, 30 Aug 2010 GMT
Further searches : pdffiles tsu police department crime alert agg robbery 08 13 08 pdf or texas southern university or site:tsu.edu
"Social engineering" usually takes the form of government policy. At the end of the eighteenth century, the addition of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution was an act of social engineering that empowered the people of this country with "unalienable rights," such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to own and bear arms, the right to a speedy trial, protection from double jeopardy, and so forth.
In the nineteenth century, the abolition of slavery was a bit of social engineering that tore this country apart. After the Civil War, Congress passed the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution, freeing slaves, granting citizenship to people regardless of their former state of servitude, and extending to them the right to vote. To this day, many Southerners are greatly disturbed by this change in their lifestyles.
Some of the greatest examples of social engineering in the twentieth century took place during the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Social Security, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Aid to the Blind, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and so forth changed the basic fabric of our society.
Today, the issues that involve social engineering center around same-sex marriage, the right to privacy, government control over private enterprise, and federal regulations regarding banking and finance will likely have long-term effects on the United States.
In some cases, public opinion drives the attempts at social engineering, but in other instances, the government has to take unpopular stands. However, eventually most people accept the changes. One extraordinary exception to that rule was the imposition of prohibition by Constitutional amendment. That amendment was soon reversed, reflecting the wishes of the people.
Robert Heinlein wrote in one of his books that the only difference between a fundamentalist religious type and a confidence man is that the confidence man has the tremendous disadvantage of not believing what he says.
Food for thought, more than anything.
I don't think that someone who has faith in a given higher power is gullible, though. There is more to it than that. We ALL ask these unanswerable questions. Some are not comfortable with simply not knowing, so they get into a faith they can find said comfort in.
I don't fault anyone for it, it just isn't the way I'd live. I think your colleague is a little rude for suggesting such a thing, though. It discounts tremendously the ideas which bring religion about in the first place.
Gullibility does not have to be present in the least for someone to have faith. A gullible person will believe one idea when a better one exists, just because someone tells them a few lies about their preferred idea. But that is not the case in religion. None of it is lies, none of it is truth. It lies in a realm we call "faith", which has no use for true or false in a scientific sense.
You are asking about small business with big business words. In small business, the owner does it all. The business plan may be as much as a sheet of paper on the wall.
I’m sure about my theorie, Sarah was carring Mini Mouse across the whole Disneyworld on her head. that must be love …
maybe the last one was to look at his own penis….. XD
The Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois has released its top … government funds, a business bank transaction or a confiscated family …
Filename : Top10ScamsOf2007.pdf
Fullpath : /pdfs/newsLetter/issue_18/pdfs/Top10ScamsOf2007.pdf
Publisher : shredstation.com
Found at Monday, 30 Aug 2010 GMT
Further searches : pdfs newsletter issue 18 pdfs top10scamsof2007 pdf or microsoft word top 10 scams 2007 or site:shredstation.com
always, like you lol
In Political Science, social engineering are efforts to influence popular societies on a large scale.
In Security, social engineering is the practice of obtaining confidential information by manipulating users.
In Sociology, social engineering is efforts to fix a sociological problem in a society.
Which are you asking about?
Use beauty, brains with model agencies: This is a consumer advice column written by the Better Business Bureau of …