Once a scam gets national TV news coverage and they show a few victims
admitting they got suckered in a lot of copy cat scammers pop-up.
Most of the copy cat crooks aren't very bright and are rejected because
of their technique or the scam is so widely exposed that every body is
wary.
We routinely get official looking mail (Actually says Official in some
type of smeared seal) that says they can save us hundreds on City State,
County taxes if we'll send $20.00
With a phone call to the Tax office we can have the same form mailed to
us at government expense.
However their form gleans a lot of valuable info that the City doesn't
require so they have some secondary scams that they are running.
I've heard (no proof) that there is a scammers in Miami that mails
several hundred thousand invoices each month for amounts less than $20.00
to elderly people claiming that the invoice is for Drs services not
covered by Medicare or their supplemental insurance company. Since the
amount is so small by todays standards many people just pay it rather
than investigate before paying.
Another current scam is the "We found money owed to you". They list a
pleasant sounding amount and promise to get the money for you if you send
the commission in advance. They found money alright ..
I have been getting demands for payment in a variety of flashy colors for
many months now that claim that I owe $1400.00 + and they'll save my
credit for a 25% settlement. They list a reference number but never say
who the money is owed to or when the debt was originated. This is easy
for me to detect since I don't use credit cards for over 10 years now.
I'm not a consumer of much of anything other than new or used VW parts so
any debt like this is easily detected as a fraud from my end.
If you ordered my credit report I'll come back as a "Ghost". That means
that there have been no inquiries or reports to my credit bureau records
in over ten years.

Stan Wilder

On Fri, 6 Jun 2003 19:38:11 +1000 Ian Anderson <irsa76@OPTUSNET.COM.AU>
writes:
> I used to get the same scams with my old e-mail account.  I got fed
> up so I
> forwarded them to the Australian Federal Police as part of their
> investigations on internet scams.  I also Cc my e-mail to the AFP to
> the
> scammers. No further attempts, sofar.
> Ian
>
>

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