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Readers having fun at expense of scammers

Not only are Parkland readers finding it easier to identify scams, some of them are having fun giving scammers a hard time.

Jeanetta Dalton of Desloge read a story in the Daily Journal’s scam series that dealt with fraudulent offers to lower interest rates on credit cards. So, she was prepared when the phone rang and a recorded message began the pitch.

“The message said, ‘How would you like to lower the interest rate on your credit cards?’,” Dalton related. “I knew where this was headed.”

Dalton waited while the recorded male voice finished its spiel. A woman’s recorded voice came on, telling Dalton to hold because her call was important. The next message was another male voice, telling her he could lower her interest rate on her Visa, American Express or Mastercard.

Dalton has none of those cards.

Finally, a man came on the line and asked Dalton if she was interested in lowering the rate on her credit cards.

“Well, I’m thinking about it, but you didn’t list my credit card,’” she told the man. She continued, “Your call came up as private, and I’m somewhat concerned about that.

Click. The man hung up.

“I was on there about four minutes, and boy, it did sound legitimate,” she said. “They said things you hear in a legitimate call.”

Because the call was listed as private instead of a phone number, Dalton had no way of calling the man back to employ the rest of her plan.

“I tried to get their number, because I was going to get him,” she explained. “I was ready to give him all kinds of fake numbers.”

Mary Jane Johnson of Farmington learned she had won second prize in a consumer clearing house sweepstakes. The prize was $500,000.

Lawyers for Adams, Clarke and Associates in Albany N.Y. were supposedly handling the transaction.

“They told me I won this money, and they said the clearing house had hired them to handle the sweepstakes. That involved collecting the prize taxes, which were $211,500.

They said they got the taxes down to $83,000 and that she could bring it to them in Albany, or she could send the money to them.

“The first man I talked to, he sounded wonderful,” she recalled. “He was American, intelligent. We talked about his family. He was going to take his son to the Arch and he was going to bring the IRS man.”

Johnson called the IRS to see if the offer could possibly be legitimate. Staff explained that the clearing house would have taken the taxes out first. When she said that they were asking a tax rate of nearly 40 percent, an IRS employee said their highest allowable charge is 25 percent, Johnson said.

When she spoke with the “lawyer” again, he gave her the address of a bank in Cyprus. She was to send the bank the taxes.

“I told him I wouldn’t send it to Cyrus because there’s a lot of scams there,” she said.

They gave her the name of another bank, this one in England, that would handle the taxes. Then they put her on the phone with another person.

“He congratulated me,” she said. “But when I lit into him, he left me on terminal hold.”

Later in the week, another call came in from a man who said he was from a savings and loan company in England. The man said the company sells bonds to Americans and made millions of dollars.

“In appreciation, he was picking 10 Americans to give them each $28,000 in bonds, and I was a contender,” Johnson said. “I said I had company and told him to call back later.”

Jewel Pyeatt of Bonne Terre is on the “No Call” list, but she continues to get calls from scammers. Many are from a “dish network” company. The latest came up on the caller ID as being from Parkland Health Center in Bonne Terre. Staff there later said they have no such number and knew nothing about the calls.

Pyeatt said the calls typically have the same woman’s voice or same man’s voice. This was no exception. After the recording, she pressed 1 and connected with a man.

Before he could say much, she let him know that he was fooling no one.

“It told him, ‘I’ll be sure to let our local hospital know that you are not affiliated with them but you are using their name and number as your ID,’” she said. “‘I bet you can answer to the Attorney General’s office, too.’ He hung up.”

The call disturbed Pyeatt because her father had died a week earlier at Parkland Health Center in Farmington. When she saw the caller ID, she thought something happened to her father-in-law.

“I knew that this (satellite offer) was a fraud because I’ve heard about these,” she said. “My dad, before he passed away, fell for one. It was from one of those same dish people.”

Alma Woodcock of Ironton tracked her scammer to England and chewed him out.

Woodcock received an item in the mail asking her to stand in as a relative of a deceased person who had left behind a great deal of money. As is typical of these scams, the scammer, “Frank Edwards,” offered to split the money with Woodcock.

He left a phone number in England where he could be reached. Woodcock, whose son is in England, realized that the man left off the first three digits. Because she calls her son, Woodcock knew what those three numbers were.

So she called.

“I have international calling and it doesn’t cost much, so I called the number,” she related. “When he answered, I said, ‘Is this Frank Edwards?’”

The man replied, “What?” So she asked him his name again. This time he verified that he was Edwards.

Next, she asked him who he worked for. The man did not answer. She asked if he worked for the company whose name was on the notice. When he said he did, she started a tirade.

“Why didn’t you answer me?” she asked.

“Why are you calling me?” the man replied.

“I’m calling to tell you that I think you are a hoax!”

The man then asked her if she was a beneficiary for the deceased man. She said no. He asked if her son was a beneficiary. She repeated, “no.”

Then she wrapped up the following with a directive.

“You don’t send us any more letters about anything pertaining to you!” Woodcock insisted. “Because you are just a hoax!”

The man hung up. Woodcock enjoyed a hearty chuckle.

The Daily Journal has made a commitment to keep readers abreast of scams that hit our area. If someone tries to make you the victim of a scam, call us at 431-2010 and tell us what happened. We will include your story in our scam alert series to prepare others who may find themselves in the same situation. The Daily Journal will run Scam Alert stories in the paper every Saturday.

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