Protect Yourself from Consumer Fraud

They prey on you at night as you're sitting down to dinner. They get you at work, hoping that staring at a computer all day will make you braindead enough to give into their ploys. They are fraudulent telemarketers -- scam artists who aim to suck up as much of your cash as possible. Together with home improvement/construction and mail marketing deception, phone solicitation rounds out as the most common type of fraud, according to consumer watchdogs the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators (NACAA) and Consumer Federation of America (CFA). "Consumers continue to lose billions of dollars each year to deception and fraud," said Joseph K. Goldberg, NACAA president and director of the bureau of consumer protection in the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office. "Stronger consumer protections and more aggressive consumer education are needed to address these problems adequately."The NACAA and CFA are urging people to take measures to prevent being on the wrong end of a bad deal. The groups, which recently released new dangers of consumer fraud, recommend not buying anything over the phone from an unknown solicitor. Use family and friend recommendations when choosing auto, home or appliance repair companies and contact your local consumer protection agency -- such as the Better Business Bureau -- to check up on firms. In addition, try to keep advance payments to a minimum and use a credit card when possible instead of cash or checks; credit cards make it easier for the customer to dispute payment on goods or services they never received.People cannot ward off fraud completely on their own, though. "Consumer protection and education targeted at rip-offs will succeed only if state and local protection agencies remain active," said Stephen Brobeck, CFA executive director. "Only these agencies stand between unscrupulous sellers and vulnerable consumers." Complaints about unscrupulous sellers are particularly evident among Spanish-speaking buyers, according to the groups, which documented the highest number of complaints from Spanish-speaking customers in California and Florida.In Los Angeles County, Latino customers filed complaints with the Department of Consumer affairs, claiming they were bilked out of more than $700 to remove negative credit references from their credit reports. In San Francisco, the District Attorney's office received complaints from Spanish-speaking immigrants who claimed a woman posing as an Immigration and Naturalization employee extorted thousands of dollars from them by claiming she could expedite their applications. The city is trying to remedy this and other similar situations by using community outreach, consumer alerts and offering such services as free bi-lingual consumer counseling, said Laurel Pallock, an investigator for the San Francisco District Attorney's office.In Northern California's Santa Cruz county, the District Attorney's office reported some merchants negotiate verbally in Spanish, then ask Latino customers to sign contracts in English that deviate from the verbal agreements. For consumers of any language, though, the most important thing to remember is don't be too trusting, said NACAA's Joseph Goldberg. "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. You need to know who you're dealing with. It may be corny, but it's true," he said.