Page 16 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • October 3, 2012 Another scam is the Craigslist fraud. One of the most bizarre cases I remember from this field is the mail order snake. A client’s son wanted to sell a snake, so he advertised and found a buyer who agreed $200 was a fair price. However, the snake purchaser sent a check for $2,000. The honest seller contacted the would-be buyer and told him he had sent too much money. The buyer told the seller to cash the check, keep $200, and send the balance to him in cash or by a personal check. The seller then sent the snake and a personal check – and the buyer’s $2,000 check bounced. This scam has permutations. Lonely men sometimes contact mail order brides who advertise online. Many already have boyfriends in their own countries and want to get their names on a U.S. marriage license. The bride shows up, the papers are signed, and the marriage sometimes ends before anything else happens. In the meantime, the boyfriend arrives in America and marries the new divorcee. Then there are the e-mail scams. Have you ever received an e-mail from some foreign country telling you a man who hated his own government wants to leave you his entire estate of $2,500,000, but the lawyer who is the executor of the dead total stranger’s will needs a mere $20,000 to process the will? I get these messages all the time, and so do my friends. Whoever sends this stuff must have researched Bergen County’s demographics and found out that most people could use $2,500,000 and are probably well enough off to have $20,000 available. What he or she failed to find out -- I hope -- is that you need a three-digit IQ to make that money or hold onto it. Sorry if any of my readers fell for this one. My son talked me out of it. Repair scams are still popular. They usually start with a worker saying, “Excuse me, ma’am/sir, but I just happened to be finishing a job around the neighborhood and I noticed that your (driveway, chimney – you name it) is in really bad shape. I just happen to have enough material to fix it and I can give you a really good discount on the price.” What the person usually gets is a coat of black paint that looks great through the winter and costs a lot more than if he or she hired a college kid to do it. The Ponzi scheme is kind of a blood libel, because the technique existed long before the Charles “Carlo” Ponzi got caught in 1920. John Law worked such a scheme in France in the early 1700s and fled when he got caught. Charles Dickens described two fictional instances. Around World War I, Ponzi noticed that he could make pocket money by buying and selling postal exchange coupons. He made a few cents on the dollar depending on whether the American or Italian prices were higher when the coupons were redeemed. J.P. Morgan used to do the same thing on a grander scale with arbitrage, swapping French francs for German marks or vice versa and sometimes making $10,000 a day before he got out of bed and went to work. No one ever questioned Morgan’s arbitrage legality. Ponzi and Law went wrong because they attracted investors through paying good money for stock using the proceeds from new investments, rather than any profits earned by the money invested. In Law’s care, there were no profits. French ownership of Louisiana did so badly that the French later traded it back to Spain. Ponzi’s postal coupon sales could not generate anything like the high-profit stock dividends he was sometimes asked for. He paid off the old stockholders with money he took from new stockholders, and when the public discovered this, there was no money to redeem most of the stock. This happens all the time when people expect 15 percent interest while the banks are paying three percent. Bernie Madoff was one spectacular Ponzi artist, but he was not the last one. The answer to this is not “cruel and unusual punishment.” The answer is simple: honest scorn of anyone who deliberately cheats others with fraudulent investments, worthless repairs, or non-existent bequests from total strangers. These are middle-class crimes, and they deserve middle-class punishment -- as in a complete loss of trust and respect, not the rope or 100 years in Rahway. Know what a humbug really is? We have all heard Ebenezer Scrooge use the expression, but the origin of the term is particularly interesting. Back before cell phones replaced watches as time-keeping devices, having a pocket watch was a status symbol. A pocket watch was generally the first thing paupers pawned when they needed a meal or a drink, so having a watch on your person meant you were still flush. People who were not flush would somehow acquire a watch that was hopelessly broken, scrape out the cogs and wheels, and insert a cricket that would scurry while trying to escape from the empty watch casing. The pauper who wanted to appear to be flush would whip out the watch to consult it, and if anyone questioned whether the watch was really working (since there was no second hand in those days) he would hold up the watch, and the noise made by the cricket would pass for the ticking of the watch. Thus the “hum bug” was born. An Oct. 17 Scam & Fraud Prevention Workshop that will start at 7 p.m. at Glen Rock Borough Hall will introduce citizens to some of the more insidious ways in which people will try to scam others. Some people may be so down and out that stealing from trusting people is the last resort. I urge everyone who can get there to go to this or to any similar lecture, but based on reports from various police departments, I can provide a brief introduction to some of what they may hear. Ever bought stock through a friend in need? Dubious stockbrokers sometimes hire desperate people whose friends still have money. When the stock quotations start to go drastically up and down, this means somebody is making money by dropping his or her own shares to make the price fall and then buying them back when they are assumed to be rock-bottom and creating the illusion of a rebound. That is the time to get out. If you jump fast and ignore appeals to friendship, loyalty, manhood, or whatever, you may be lucky enough to break even. One of the items on the Glen Rock agenda is the “Grandparents sam.” We’ve had a couple of these in this area. In one of the earlier cases, a couple of grandparents from Wyckoff received a gruff call from a “Canadian attorney” who said their college-age grandson was under arrest in Canada after a DWI with an injury to another motorist. The hapless grandson was facing immediate jail time if the grandparents did not send a substantial amount of money. The grandson was in custody and could not come to the telephone. The grandparents sent the money. The grandparents shortly learned that their grandson had not been in Canada and had not been involved in a DWI. There are three lessons here. Do you know where your grandsons are? Do they generally have enough common sense not to get involved in driving drunk? Do you know enough to put the caller on hold and find out from your adult children whether the grandchildren are vacationing in out-of-the-way places before you commit five-figure checks to Western Union? Is scamming the last ditch of the American middle class? Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincerest gratitude for all of the generous love and support we received from our family and friends who attended the fundraiser at Midland Park High School on Sept. 15. The Midland Park community is tremendously giving, and we are proud to have grown up in such a wonderful environment filled with people who care about each other so genuinely. As we continue to fight our battle, we feel empowered knowing so many people are cheering us on. Thank you to the local businesses who gave so generously and for your support. Elaine and Ron Mazurek Midland Park Dear Editor: I’m writing to endorse Eileen Avia for the Wyckoff Township Committee. Eileen has been our wonderful neighbor for the past 30 years. My husband and I are 92 and 97 years old. Eileen has consistently been there for us, whether it is bringing us our newspaper, bringing up our garbage cans, shoveling snow in the winter, providing a meal, or introducing us to her latest pet which she has adopted from the animal shelter where she volunteers. She is our lifeline during power outages, and we know we can count on her in any situation. Eileen is involved with environmental issues and is an active animal advocate. She helped turn a plain courtyard at Eisenhower School into a beautiful area with flowers, plants, and a table and chairs where the kids now have a wonderful place to sit, relax, and enjoy nature. She is innovated and dedicated in anything she does. I feel that Eileen will be a valuable addition to our township committee. Eva Hopf Wyckoff Dear Editor: We are writing this in support of the Rooney-Jepsen Team for the Wyckoff Township Committee. We have had the pleasure of becoming personal friends with Haakon and his lovely family over the last few years. We feel that he and Community genuinely cares Appreciation for Avia his family are fantastic individuals with great hearts and values. They are involved and care about Wyckoff. We have also been involved in local community groups with Haakon and have admired his creative analysis, along with a passionate commitment and dedication to tasks set before him. He conducts himself with an infectious, positive energy and open mind while maintaining a keen eye for detail. Haakon has displayed these traits through his service to the Township of Wyckoff as a member of the zoning board and his commitment to faith and family as a parishioner at Saint Elizabeth’s Church. We know that Haakon would have a positive effect on the community, bring new and fresh ideas, and will always give 100 percent of his effort with upstanding character in his service to Wyckoff. While Haakon will be a welcome newcomer to the Wyckoff Township Committee, Kevin Rooney has the proven experience and leadership to do what is right for Wyckoff. Kevin’s volunteerism and hard work on the Shade Tree Commission, zoning board, and now the township committee have benefitted the citizens of Wyckoff and helped to make Wyckoff the township we love. Let’s not forget how great Wyckoff is and realize that this greatness is a direct result of the hard work and dedication of those who have been serving our township for years. We both confidently endorse -- and urge others in Wyckoff to support -- the Rooney-Jepsen team on Nov. 6. Ed & Vicki Kalpagian Wyckoff Support for Rooney and Jepsen Dear Editor: I had the pleasure of first meeting Shirley HermansenO’Reilly almost two years ago, when we both volunteered to participate on the district’s Efficiency Committee. It was there that I learned firsthand about Shirley’s knowledge, dedication, and passion for the Franklin Lakes School District. Shirley is a working mother of four, member of Most Blessed Sacrament Church, and volunteer at the Coalition for the Homeless as well as PENCIL, whose mission is to improve student achievement by developing and supporting long-term partnerships between businesses and public (continued on page 17) Urges support for Hermansen-O’Reilly