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Guest lecture at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church

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Shrine Circus awards Toys R Us gift certificates

<p>We&#8217;ve all heard the old adage that things aren&#8217;t always as they appear, but there are so many ways we can get fooled these days, it&#8217;s harder than ever to know what&#8217;s legit. Last week, I received an email from Marlene Wright, of Wyoming, because she was worried about her 87-year-old mother in Plains Township.</p><p>&#8220;We think she is being scammed by one of these fake sweepstakes,&#8221; Wright wrote. &#8220;This has been going on for a few months, and we think we finally convinced her she did not win a million dollars, only to find out a week later she is still participating.&#8221;</p><p>The so-called &#8220;sweepstakes&#8217; entries show up in the mail in colorful, giant-sized envelopes with impressive words like &#8220;International Judging Headquarters,&#8221; &#8220;Award Declaration Center&#8221; and &#8220;Award Notification&#8221; stamped on the front. Inside is a letter asking, &#8220;What would you say to being an instant millionaire?&#8221;</p><p>There are various ways to claim your supposed prize &#8212; ordering magazines, paying an &#8220;acquisition fee&#8221; or buying &#8220;premium merchandise,&#8221; such as a &#8220;magnificent&#8221; jewelry set you could get for a quarter from a gumball machine.</p><p>Wright said her mom, whom I&#8217;ll call &#8220;Mary,&#8221; has become a magnet for such mail scams. Wright only found out a few weeks ago when Mary called in a panic because her checking account was overdrawn. She&#8217;d used her debit card to buy magazine subscriptions for the low-low price of only $60 a month.</p><p>&#8220;Four magazines for four years,&#8221; Wright said. &#8220;She said, &#8216;I&#8217;m one of the winners.&#8217; I said, &#8216;No, it&#8217;s a scam.&#8217; She is getting 10 pieces of mail from these people some days, and she had to cancel her debit card.</p><p>Mary has also paid to do puzzles in hopes of striking it rich, said Wright.</p><p>&#8220;Some of these things say, &#8220;Win a million if you can solve this puzzle.&#8217; She doesn&#8217;t believe us when we tell her it&#8217;s a scam. She says, &#8216;You&#8217;re going to be surprised when I win that million.&#8221;</p><p>I&#8217;ll say.</p><p>Legitimate sweepstakes are free. In fact, it&#8217;s illegal to require payment or a purchase to enter or increase chances of winning, and sweepstakes mailings can&#8217;t claim you&#8217;re a winner unless you&#8217;ve actually won a prize. Contests that involve solving problems or puzzles or answering quizzes can legally ask you to pay but typically get more difficult and costly as you advance, so you&#8217;re likely to end up with nothing to show for your money and time.</p><p>There are lots of reputable contests, but people lose thousands of dollars to prize scams every day. Sweepstakes that want advance payment for taxes, shipping, handling and processing, or ask you to wire money are scams. Don&#8217;t get taken.</p><p>Now, it&#8217;s time to confess &#8212; I recently got taken myself.</p><p>In last week&#8217;s column, I wrote that Morgan Freeman appeared in commercials for reverse mortgages. In what seemed like seconds after the column went online, I got an email from Fred Spektor of Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles. Now in his 80s, Spektor is a Hollywood legend who has represented Gregory Peck, Gene Hackman and Robert Deniro.</p><p>Why was he emailing me? Certainly not to put me in a movie.</p><p>&#8220;Why would you say Morgan Freeman is doing reverse mortgages?&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;I am his agent and he has NEVER done one and he never will. Where do you claim you saw this?&#8221;</p><p>I wrote back that I&#8217;d seen a Liberty Home Equity Solutions commercial I&#8217;d thought was narrated by Freeman, but after getting Spektor&#8217;s email, I had investigated and discovered, to my embarrassment, it was a lesser-known actor who has apparently made a pretty good living as a Freeman &#8220;sound-alike.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;I fell for it,&#8221; I wrote. &#8220;I apologize to Mr. Freeman and to you.&#8221;</p><p>Guess there are new ways to get fooled every day, and I got fooled by a celebrity sound-alike. So while it&#8217;s true things aren&#8217;t always as they appear, they&#8217;re not always as they sound, either.</p><style>
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Consumer Watchdog: Things aren’t always as they look, or as they sound