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Article Launched: 08/16/2006 12:06:05 AM PDT, Chico Enterprise-Record

You can't get something for nothing: Local seniors learn how to avoid being scammed

By LARRY MITCHELL - Staff Writer

Two phrases were repeated many times Tuesday at a forum on scams:

-- "They want to separate you from your money."

-- "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

Speakers hammered home the ideas that people can't be too careful, that scam artists are smart and getting smarter, and that the many swindles, often aimed at seniors, are a huge business.

Millions of Americans are being taken for billions of dollars, said Jos VanHout, an investigator with the Butte County District Attorney's Office.

The forum, held at Oakmont Retirement Center in Chico, was organized by Rep. Wally Herger, R-Chico. "I've asked these experts to speak because so many of my constituents are being, quite frankly, ripped off," Herger told more than 100 seniors who had assembled for the event. "If you question whether something is too good to be true, check with someone you trust — your children or a police officer. You can even call your congressman."

Herger said he was holding five public meetings on the problem around the 2nd Congressional District this week.

The meetings were inspired by the case of a Yuba City woman who became so deeply involved in international swindles that she apparently took her own life earlier this year.

Her husband, Jim Anderson, attended the forum and, tearfully at times, talked about what had happened.

He said his wife, Norma, received letters from countries that included England, Germany, Israel, Canada and Costa Rica, telling her she had won millions of dollars in their national lotteries.

She was sent convincing copies of checks made out to her. But before she could receive the money, Norma had to send money — $750 or as much as $5,000 — to cover certain contingencies, such as insurance or taxes or a "courier fee."

Anderson held up a large paper bag full of receipts he said his wife received for the many payments she made over a year. In all, she paid out $569,000, and she received nothing. In the end, she was so deeply in despair about the debts she ran up that she apparently drowned herself in a river. Her body hasn't been found.

Extreme as it sounds, such cases aren't so uncommon, said Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey. He noted an Oroville man lost $300,000 to a similar operation.

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