March 2007
It’s getting close to the time for the annual RSVP
Spring Forum. I want you to go ahead and set aside the date of Thursday,
April 19th from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. This year it will be held at the
First Church of the Nazarene gymnasium. We will have many education
booths, a morning coffee break and lunch. But what I am most excited
about is the topic, “Cons, Scams & Shams: Protecting Yourself in
Today’s World.”
As much as I hate it, today’s world is nothing like the world of my
childhood, where we seldom locked our homes or car doors; when the phone
rang it was a friend or relative, sometimes an occasional wrong number;
the mail consisted of letters and bills, not pre-approved credit card
applications and checks; I didn’t own a shredder (I don’t think there
was such a thing); the only people looking in our dumpsters (garbage
cans) were the person taking the trash out and the person collecting the
trash for the city; we went to the bank to get our money, they knew us
and we knew them; I smiled and spoke to strangers; my social security
number was the only number I had to remember and nobody else really
cared about it. Unfortunately, that’s not what it is like anymore.
This year’s Spring Forum will focus on the cons and scams that are most
often targeted toward the population of age 55 plus. This group gets
singled out for several reasons. One reason being they have money. A
second reason being many do not have family close by to help with
decision-making whether it be in home repairs, funeral planning or
estate management. We will have speakers from the Attorney Generals
office, the FBI, Social Security, Better Business Bureau, local
attorneys, doctors, and home health.
This is a seminar that you all need to attend. The con artists are out
there; the scammers are out there, and they want your money, your social
security number, your driver license number, your credit card numbers,
and your bank account numbers. I Googled ‘senior cons & scams’ and came
up with 382,000 possible searches. Our Texas Attorney General, Greg
Abbott, has pages and pages of information that I hope we will be able
to furnish some to you.
Here’s a personal story that happened to me last week where a credit
card company’s fraud department was on the ball. I tried pumping gas at
station #1 on 82nd Street at about 5:00 pm, but the pump was empty and I
only received a dribble ($0.06). I left station #1 and proceeded to
station #2 on 82nd Street at about 5:15 pm, tried to pump the gas there
but the pump and I obviously weren’t in synch because the pump canceled
my transaction. I left station #2 feeling a little hot under the collar
and decided I best go home and try again later in the evening. I had to
buy gas, the dribble wasn’t enough. At about 7:00 pm I drove to station
#3 on 82nd Street, filled my tank and went back home. At approximately
8:00 pm I received an automated call from the credit card company asking
me to hold for fraud department (I thought they said fire department)
and I hung up. Then at about 8:30 pm I received another call from the
credit card company but this time it was a real person. He said he was
from the fraud department (again I thought he said fire department). He
repeated himself, asked if I was Dana Bear, and informed me that there
had been three attempts to use my credit card to buy gas that evening.
He wanted to know if I was aware of this or if something suspicious was
going on. I told him that it was I…all three times…but I sure
appreciated their efforts. He did not ask me for my credit card number,
he did not ask me for my home address, and he did not ask me for my
mother’s maiden name; he only verified that my name was Dana Bear.
To
volunteer, or for more information about these or other volunteer
positions, please call the RSVP office at 742-2423.
HOW do I join RSVP?
Becoming a member of RSVP is simple as long as you are at least 55 and have some time to volunteer. Just call the office at 742-2423 and chat with Ronda Casey or
Dana Bear about your interests. If you are not certain what you would like to do, we can mention several current volunteer opportunities and send you a list of the sort of jobs which RSVP members are presently doing to whet your appetite. If you have a special skill or talent that you would like to utilize, we will search to find just the right job for you. Just mail in the
enrollment form
(requires Adobe Reader) and we will call you!
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