Yet another scam

This is both infuriating and tiresome….

So for the last couple of weeks my father has been getting after-hours automated calls from a company identifying itself as Boyajian Law Offices. The recorded announcement claims that they are attempting to collect a debt and asks for a return call. When I called back during business hours the week before last, the lady who answered the phone apologized and said it was a wrong number, so I figured, okay.

The next week we got a call from a man who identified himself as “Lawrence” with Boyajian and who told us that there was an unpaid bill for Older Bro from a “Cardinal Emergency Service”. The bill was for $216 and change. They asked if I could do payment over the phone and I told them, no, that I would put a check in the mail next week. Boy, am I glad I did.

For whatever reason, the fools called back. Maybe they got greedy, who knows. But “Lawrence”–if that is, in fact, his real name–left a message for me to call him. Due to the overall chaos of the weekend, I (a) didn’t get a chance to return his call this weekend, and (b) I forgot my briefcase of important papers when I returned to Louisville. I figured, no sweat, if they’re debt collectors they likely have a web site–I’ll get online and look up their telephone number. I jumped onto Google Search (sorry, Yahoo!) and typed in their name.

Oh, the return results were so illuminating. Check it out:

CreditWrench.com – A ripoff by a supposed debt collector who isn’t one

Bud Hibb’s web site – Bud Hibbs helps people dealing with debt, and also helps people who’ve been targeted by fraudulent debt collectors. The first scam listed under Consumer Comments is the exact same scam they tried to use on my brother. Turns out there is no Cardinal Emergency Services!

Rip Off Report web site - Please note how recent the comments here are. Looks like Boyajian is on a spree.

Cleburne (AL) News Online - here’s the expose done by an Alabama newspaper on these sleazebags.

Praise the Lord, the check has not yet cleared. I’m calling the bank this morning. I’ve already called Dad and told him what I found out. I’ve also told him that if Lawrence or anyone calling back from Boyajian Law Offices calls, he is to play dumb and say that he has no access to any money and that his daughter is handling everything–he’ll take a message and have me call them back.

…Okay, I just made a bunch of phone calls. Our bank has stopped the check and will await my brother’s arrival after work to sign the necessary paperwork–$20 stoppage fee, which is a very small price to pay. Dad is on Yellow Alert. And I’m going to file a complaint with the California Bar–according to what I’m reading, these assholes aren’t bonded debt collectors, and they aren’t authorized to practice law outside of the state of California. Furthermore, their shenanigans have them barely hanging onto their law license as it is.

It’s taking everything I have to not to call Boyajian’s back and go, “GOTCHA!” We’ll wait until the forms are signed, at least. In the meantime, I’m letting people know what happened.

I may have to make this blog the Scam of the Month blog, or something. It sure seems like that’s the dominant theme lately.

Someone scammed my dad

I’ve long believed that there’s a special place in Hell for people who prey on the defenseless.  Child molesters.   Wife/child/elder beaters.  And people who scam the mentally disabled and/or senior citizens.

My dad will be seventy in a couple of weeks.  This morning, while he was sitting at home waiting for me to come in from Louisville, three men in a black Ford pick-up drove up to the farm house.  They claimed they had blacktop sealant left over from a job, it was going to go to waste, would he like them to seal his driveway for cheap?

Daddy said he didn’t have the money for it.  They told him they were more interested in just getting rid of the stuff, they would only charge him $5.00 to do the work.  So Daddy said okay.

There’s a pick-up truck and two cars (my dad’s and my older brother’s) in the driveway.  Daddy gave one of the men the keys to my brother’s car so he could move it, while Daddy moved the truck and his car.  They sprayed down the driveway in about five minutes, then told dad “That’ll be six-fifty.”

“Let me see if I have fifty cents”, Daddy said.

The men said, “No, that’s six hundred and fifty dollars.“

“But you told me you could do the work for five dollars!”  my dad sputtered.

“Well, yeah.  Five dollars a pound.”

Here’s why scams like this work:

(1) Con men like this look for senior citizens.  They know that seniors–especially seniors in rural areas–come from a different era, where written estimates and formal contracts for basic repairs and maintenance work were largely unneeded.   Seniors tend to still think the world works that way, and con men exploit it.

(2)  Seniors also are sensitive about their mental acuity.   They start getting forgetful, or hard of hearing, and it’s very embarassing to them.  They’ve been independent and able to take care of themselves and others for most of their lives, and when they start to slip it’s a source of frustration and sometimes shame.  So they try very hard to cover for it, to the point where they will assume they’re in the wrong when they really aren’t.

(3) Con men make sure they do the work before they spring the “real” price on you, so you automatically think you’re legally obligated to pay them.  But you’re not–that’s called a “bait-and-switch” and it’s illegal.

But here’s my poor dad, who’s hearing isn’t great, who just lost his wife in February and is having to take over running the household, and who’s just been told that he misunderstood the price.

So he wrote them a check.

I got home about thirty minutes after the men left.   The minute I heard the story I called the bank to stop the check.  We had to come in to the bank to sign for stopping it, but fortunately for us the bank was only four miles away.    The customer service person confirmed that the check was cashed about twenty minutes before I walked in the door.

We called the police, of course, and filed a report.   The bank is working with the police to pull the security camera photos, to get a picture of the asshole who cashed the check.

We WILL find these jerks.  But in the meantime,  I’m telling everyone I know what happened.  And now that Daddy’s over his embarassment, he’s telling everyone else, too.  Hell, I may call the local paper next week–if we can get our hands on the bank photo of this guy and there’s no problem releasing it to the public, I’l take out a fornicatin’ ad.   Our real estate agent thinks the same men may have been through his neighborhood a week or so ago. 

The more people who know about these guys and their modus operandi, the more likely they’ll get busted by the sheriff.

Assholes.