Confidence Games

One of my favorite series bloggers sarahnity has a weekly series at Daily Kos called “Frugal Fridays” that offers different tips and ideas every week, by her and a number of volunteer authors, on how to make your money go farther, how to earn money on the side, and how to hang on to what you’ve got. Last Friday the theme was frauds and scams geared toward those being most harmed by the current economy, entitled Don’t Get Fooled Again.

I’m just going to list the major confidence games going around in recent weeks/months, and the several resources and good advice offered to help people determine if something’s on the up-and-up or just more grifters targeting the weak to make themselves strong. The series is awesome, definitely worth bookmarking by all readers of this blog and checked every Friday afternoon for the latest in resources for the frugal.

The major scams making the rounds these days – particularly via the internet – are sometimes old and sometimes new. There’s the standard Work from Home sting where you have to pay to find out who’s hiring. If someone wants your money before showing you the want ads, it’s likely a scam. Real employers aren’t looking for you to pay them, they’re seeking people to pay for good work.

Then there’s the new-ish trick of Facebook identity theft where a clever grifter assumes an identity from among your networking ‘friends’ (often a relative) to beg for money. Be suspicious if someone on your Facebook page suddenly asks for money. Often the real person knows nothing about it – so check on regular email before sending anything.

There are also property tax scams going around where someone tells you you’re paying too much for property recently devalued. All you have to do is send money and the scammers won’t do anything for you. These can come in the regular mail too, so always do your homework and check with your real property tax officials about what’s what. If you really do pay too much, they’ll let you know for free. In line with this there are also housing and mortgage frauds, where someone offers you a “special rate” to refinance, take your money and disappear. Don’t fall for it.

There are more, of course. Please click on Sarah’s linked diary and check them out, there is good advice on how not to be victimized and who to report suspected scams to in your state and locality.

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Filed under Debt, Government Bailouts, Housing, Pirates, Taxes | Comment (1)

“Managing the Economy”

During the Presidential campaign in the late summer of 2008, a Reuters/Zogby poll returned the finding that most Americans – as in 89% of likely voters – somehow believe that one of the primary responsibilities of the President of the United States is to “manage the economy.” In that poll 49% of likely voters rated John McCain as more able in that department, while 40% said Barack Obama would be better.

Surely that odd finding is another consequence of asking the wrong question the wrong way, so perhaps more than 11% of likely voters are fairly aware that the POTUS doesn’t manage the economy as part of his (or someday maybe, her) job description. but judging from how little (and poorly taught) civics is included in a public school general education these days, maybe this misconception is just that widespread.

As Gene Healy wrote at the time in The Cult of the Presidency…, “Our system, with its unhealthy, unconstitutional concentration of power, feeds on the atavistic tendency to see the chief magistrate as our national father or mother, responsible for our economic well-being, our physical safety, and even our sense of belonging.”

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