I tell you, I hate people who target the elderly just to make a buck.

In this case, I’m talking about my mother, who’d probably want to kill me if she knew I referred to her as “elderly”, but she’s over 70 so it fits. I just finished talking to her on the phone, and she told me a story that just irks me to no end. The reason it irks me is because I knew it was a scam as soon as she started, but she did figure it out for herself. Here’s the tale.

She got this phone call from a group asking for money for some cancer charity. She doesn’t know the names of all these cancer charities, but my parents have given to charities a lot, mainly local charities. The woman never said they were a local charity, but she talked about all the good the money would go to. My dad had lung cancer, and my grandmother has had two bouts with breast cancer, so Mom’s susceptible to people asking for money. However, the woman kept asking her if she could pay the money in two days. Mom thought that was suspect, but she said yes.

She got something in the mail the next day, and it said she’d be sending the money to Michigan; we live in New York. So she decided to call the number on the card, and she got an answering machine indicating it was some pharmacy. She called a second time just to make sure she dialed it correctly, and she had.

The next day, the phone rings, and it’s this same woman, only this time, according to Mom, she’s not as friendly as she was the first time they talked. The woman said they didn’t get her payment, and needed her to send it out that day. Mom said she thought they were a local organization and would be giving in town, and the woman told her they gave to charities all over the United States. Mom then told her about calling the phone number, and the woman said “I don’t know what that’s all about, but call this number I’m going to give you as soon as we hang up,” and proceeded to give her another number. Of course, at that point Mom smells a rat, didn’t call, and hasn’t heard back from these people since.

I told my mother to please stop picking up the phone if she sees it’s an 800 number of any kind, because all of them either want money from her or want to sell her something. She said she wouldn’t pick up any more of these numbers, and I hope she sticks to it. But I’m still bothered, because these people obviously had some information on her and my family history, which they shouldn’t, and they tried to appeal to her in that fashion. Luckily, Mom’s not your average gullible bear, but if they’d been a little sharper they’d have had her money.

Just like my post on tax scams, these things seem so simple and easy to pick out, but I forget that not everyone has their eyes open enough to smell these things for what they are, especially older people. I don’t know what to say to help them directly, so I’ll appeal to you, my readers, to look out for your parents and older friends, and don’t let them be victimized in this fashion. These are the people someone needs to track down and put in jail.

I know I’m not the only one who’s seen this commercial on TV late at night. This company called Cash4Gold tells people to send them your gold and they’ll send you back money at higher prices than you could get at your local jeweler, or whomever you’d think about taking your gold and jewels to in your local area. All you have to do is put it in a pouch and send it to them, then wait for the money to come in. I mean, in one commercial they even use Ed McMahon and MC Hammer; this is kind of shocking from where I sit, but I guess both men need money. Can you really imagine those two sending their gold to some company in pouches?

Sure, people are hurting, and looking for cash in some fairly odd ways, but I’ve always wondered just how safe this kind of thing was. I mean, I can’t imagine needing money enough that I popped my gold Rolex into a bag and thought I was going to get my money back. Couldn’t the company just say they never received what I sent them and that would be that? I mean, could Cash4Gold actually be a scam? Really?

Well, I can’t take the full credit for this one. I got this next bit of information from another blog called The Best Article Every Day, and this article titled Confessions Of A Cash4Gold Employee. In this article, supposedly a former employee of the company outs their dirty practices, which, oddly enough, mentions my above concern as point number seven out of ten.

Of course, just as troubling is how they undervalue the items you send them, and, truthfully, if you haven’t taken your items to someone locally, such as a jeweler, you’ll have no idea whether you’re being cheated or not. Of course, when you take your items to a pawn broker, you know they’re cheating you, but at least you can look someone in the eye while they’re doing it, and you know they’re not going to be able to tell anyone that they lost your stuff. This part, along with their “bonus” program, is listed as item number eight.

Anyway, you should read the above article, and after you’ve read that one here another one for you to check out:

Complaints Board

And then, this little video:

Always remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is; remember our buddy Bernie Madoff.