Published: July 02, 2009 08:28 pm      

Scams

Con artists targeting would-be job seekers

The nature of scams perpetrated by the unscrupulous upon the unsuspecting has grown in both sophistication and size since the days when traveling con men would visit someone’s house and ask the residents, “Give me some money and I’ll pave your driveway.”

Witness the case of disgraced investment guru Bernard Madoff, who recently was sentenced to 150 years in prison for bilking billions of dollars from thousands of investors, many of whom are now financially ruined.

Some scam artists succeed because they play upon the greed of their victims ... like the probably apocryphal fellow who sold expensive books entitled “How to Make Money.” Would-be entrepreneurs shelled out big money for a book, only to find that on each page was printed the words, “Get a job at the mint.” We sometimes suspect that many of the get-rich-quick schemes we see on television aren’t far removed from this.

Other times, the con men exploit the weakness or desperation of their prey, and the Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Department of Justice and the governments of at least 13 states recently moved against the perpetrators of one of the most loathsome schemes we’ve heard of.

It fraudulently targeted people who are worried about the economy by promising them jobs that don’t exist, ways to get rich quickly and other things that would raise their hopes, but only cost them money they couldn’t afford to lose.

A typical example of the people they target was a woman who, along with 4,000 others, paid $89 for a cleaning-job certification she never received.

More than 600,000 people in California lost a combined $300 million to a company called Family Products that marketed bogus get-rich schemes.

The government is taking many of the perpetrators to court, trying to get the victims’ money back.

Those who enrich themselves at the expense of trusting, desperate people have one thing in common with Bernard Madoff: They deserve little mercy, and we hope they receive none.