KDKA.com Consumer Web Extras
Nov 19, 2008 6:12 pm US/Eastern
Tips To Avoid Top 4 Biggest Scams
(KDKA)
Scam artists want your money and will try most anything to trick you out of it.
With the help of a postal inspector, the Better Business Bureau and the Pennsylvania Attorney General, KDKA's David Highfield counts down the list of the most popular, most effective scams that con men use.
Experts say many times con men's target is the elderly.
Number 4 Scam: False calls for help According to officials, the scammer calls pretending to be a loved one who is in trouble while out of town or visiting another country.
For example, authorities say the scammer may say he's your grandson or another one of your relatives and needs money because he has been put in jail or has gotten in a car accident.
They convince the victims that they're relatives by using cell phones with bad connections or by saying they have a cold and they ask for money to be wired.
Officials say an 86-year-old woman in Westmoreland County just lost $13,000 to this scam.
Number 3 Scam: Home Improvement Scams According to officials, the scam artist will scout around for a mark and then the lies begin. They try to get their targets to pay for repairs you don't need.
Authorities say some are called chimney shakers and they target the elderly. They might even get up on the roof if you let them and come back with pieces of brick, which they had in their pocket before they went up there.
Number 2 Scam: Medical Quackery According to officials, people lose $20 billion a year to medical quackery. Authorities say sometimes the ads are on television and make startling and false claims.
For example, the Federal Trade Commission has banned an infomercial for coral calcium from the ocean floor that claimed to cure cancer.
Number 1 Scam: Foreign Lotteries The Postal Inspector says he gets a hundred complaints a week about these types of scams.
One victim agreed to talk to KDKA about how he lost a staggering amount of money to a scam. He did not want to be shown on camera or identified.
"They'll act like your best friend and everything else, and they're not," he told KDKA.
He says it began for him with a letter that he had won the Australian lottery, something he had never even entered.
Officials say the scammers send you a pre-payment check as they would call it - sometimes to pay the taxes - to pay other fees. Then, you wire transfer the amount of the taxes.
But the bad news comes after wiring the money - the check that was deposited was counterfeit - and you're out the cash you wired.
In this victims' case, the scam artists first convinced him to make a $2,600 payment and then just kept going back for more.
He says he was sent a fake debit card and a stolen bank book, but final straw came three years into the scam - when they asked for $60,000 for an anti-terrorism certificate.
At that point, he says he had been scammed out of nearly $2 million. So now he's now coming to terms with the idea he and his 88-year-old wife may never see their money again.
"Take this as a warning and don't get caught in these scams," he says.
Officials also say the victim's name has now been added on to what's called a Sucker's List. Once someone falls for one scam, their name is added to a list that's sold to other con men.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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