consumer protection

Posted by Pamela Arnsberger on Dec 01, 2016
 
Rotary meeting
Announcements and Reminders
Al announced Rotarian of the week is Michelle Bassey for her service to the community.
International Rotary President John Germ will be at Double Tree Inn Feb 3rd
Club speech contest will be here the 23rd of February. The date for the area contest will be announced later.
December 15th will be carol singing with Sam and his band.   
Tim was awarded the Paul Harris fellow 2nd level pin for his contributions to the foundation.
John announced that the club donated over $7000 this year to the Rotary Foundation and an additional amount to Polio Plus.
Keith’s Christmas party is this Sunday December 4th at 4:00. Come all and wish each other a Merry Christmas!
There is a Watsonville Band concert on Dec 11th at the Mello center at 2:00 PM free!
Today our speakers were from the Santa Cruz County District Attorney's Office Consumer Fraud Division. They spoke to us about current scams in our area and how to protect ourselves.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
They said that we were in a lucky situation in Santa Cruz County as we have the support of the elected officials for this effort. The best source of reporting is us! They said with new technology privacy loss and identity theft is a very real issue.  Unsolicited e-mails should be deleted and don’t answer the phone if you don’t know who the number belongs to.  Don’t do free trials.
Computer scams include a screen flashing telling you to call people (msn or whatever) to fix the computer. They then insert a virus. Spam filters are important.  Look at the end of address after the dot for strange extensions.
Door to door unsolicited salesmen are also still a real problem such as  a water service scam in our area. Another is people who sell old folks a little black box to lower their power bills. Unlicensed contractors are also common. Unregistered car mechanics (shade tree mechanics) are also everywhere. Dietary supplements sold from overseas is a big scam. They don’t hurt you , but neither do they work. Mailboxes getting ripped off are also ongoing; they counseled against using outside mailboxes.
They have the ability to work with other counties to take on cases with statewide exposure such as ‘greenwashing’ taskforce for claims that an environmentally safe product will dissolve. Another one is ‘slack fill’ where there is a big box for a little product such as candy in movie theaters. They reminded us that free credit report online is good (you are entitled to 3 a year) so you can see if there is unusual activity.
On their website they have notices of current scams and they provide links to agencies who might help. Consumer complaint forms are there also. See dao@co.santa-cruz.ca.us