Ever wonder how people get suckered into a scam or fall under the spell of a promise they normally might rule out as highly unlikely?
It is the ether.
“Ether is a condition that the master closer puts you in by hitting your fear, greed and urgency buttons,” explains “The Con Artist’s Playbook” from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).
Here’s how the con goes down. You are contacted by a pro adept at finding your “emotional triggers,” the hot buttons that will overrule logic in your decision-making. The caller asks personal questions to create a profile of your probable responses to certain cues. That unknown caller cunningly morphs into an ally who wants to be sure you do not miss out on this great deal he has for you. You almost feel like you know the guy.
“Never engage a stranger in a dialog about your personal life,” AARP cautions. “Always ask more questions than you answer” and watch for the signs of ether intoxication surrounding the “phantom riches” assured by the persuasive voice. You will know you are under the spell of the ether, the organization notes, when your heart beats faster, sweat forms on your brow and you start imagining all the fabulous things you could do with that carrot dangled in front of you. It can happen to anyone at any time and under various pretenses.
That is a prime reason to wait at least 24 hours after a sales presentation before agreeing to purchase anything, AARP cautions, because buyers need time to check out the company and the product being pitched, and wait for common sense to replace the allure of ether.
“Since scammers use various techniques that sometimes involve current events, anyone is vulnerable to a scam,” noted Myriam Cruz, director of community relations for the Better Business Bureau Serving Greater Arizona. “The key is to stay alert and be smart about wiring funds or providing credit/debit card numbers to people you don’t know.”
Current cons include solicitations for funding to combat the Ebola outbreak and scams specific to holiday gift giving. Those are in addition, Cruz notes, to solicitations from fake or unregistered organizations, nonexistent online deals offering low prices on travel while stealing personal information or downloading malware, skimmer devices attached to ATMs to steal credit/debit card data and computer repair where remote access to remove a software virus is requested by someone claiming to be from Microsoft or another company.
Most financial decisions – buying a car, securing a mortgage, contracting for wireless service, hiring a contractor – can be fraught with scam dangers. The federal government offers a free 146-page “Consumer Action Handbook” of almost anything a consumer might want to know about avoiding and reporting fraudsters. For details, log on to www.usa.gov/consumer.
Prescott Police have seen an increase in the past few years in fraudulent lottery scams and sweepstakes originating overseas, said Lt. Amy Bonney of the department’s Special Operations Bureau. The victim is asked to send a cashier’s check or money order to pay administrative fees to claim a prize. The request for money to receive winnings is almost always a sure sign of a scam in a lottery or sweepstakes contest, according to multiple sources.
In addition to nonexistent riches, AARP warns of two other techniques that scammers use to entice consumers into acting quickly and purely on emotion: scarcity of the product or service and badgering through fear tactics and intimidation. Encouragement to “act now or lose out” or take advantage of a “limited” timeframe or supply may be red flags that a con artist is leading you into ether land.
One unique aspect of the AARP Playbook is the scammer’s perspective of keeping victims “in the ether” because the con starts unraveling “once they drop into the valley of logic.”
Another common scheme described by Bonney is receiving a call on behalf a family member who supposedly is on a trip and has landed in jail or otherwise needs cash wired. Often, only after wiring the money, does the victim contact the family and realize that the grandson in question never left home.
“The senior population often is the target of scammers [because] most have a steady source of income,” Cruz warned. “Most seniors also are not familiar with new services or the new way older services are now offered, and scammers take advantage of this gap.”
Victims can be just scraping by and ready to accept against all odds that they have hit a jackpot, Bonney says. “They just want so badly to believe that it is happening.”
Family members can help each other by staying in communication and keeping an eye on loved ones’ spending levels, credit cards and check writing habits. Personal and banking information never should be given to “people you don’t know or who may not be legitimate,” Bonney said, emphasizing the need to “verify, verify, verify.”
The Yavapai County branch office of the Better Business Bureau of Central, Northern and Western Arizona provided consumers with business reviews nearly 80,000 times in 2013, according to Mary Hawkes, then-director, who retired this fall.
Newly-appointed Director Tracie Schimikowsky, who had headed up the Chino Valley Chamber of Commerce, will be in the BBB’s Prescott office at 213 Grove Street office starting this month. More than 600 Yavapai County businesses are BBB-accredited and sworn to uphold the organization’s standards of consumer interaction.
“Businesses can protect themselves the same way consumers do,” according to Cruz. “The key is to be very protective of financial and personal information. One of the most common scams involving businesses is fake invoicing. Scammers send bogus invoices with the hope that businesses will not notice items not ordered, and [just] pay.”
Both Bonney and Cruz emphasize that something appearing too good to be true most likely is just what it seems. They also recommend that residents or businesses call them “when something does not seem right,” so that potential victims can be assisted, the public can be warned and the cycle of fraud can be interrupted. FBN
Contact the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office at 928-774-4523 or the Flagstaff Police Department at 928-774-1414. Information about scams, fraudsters and other con artists is available at www.coconinoaz.gov and www.aarp.org. Registration for the national Do Not Call List managed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is free online at www.donotcall.gov or by calling toll free from the number you wish to register at 888-382-1222 or TTY: 888-290-4236. The federal government offers a free 146-page “Consumer Action Handbook” of almost anything a consumer might want to know about avoiding and reporting fraudsters. For details, visit www.usa.gov/
By Sue Marceau
Flagstaff Business News