Scam Artists and Disabilities

For as long as time itself, people have taken advantage of various disabilities to gain monies, things, or "just for a good laugh".

From the classic person on the street corner with sunglasses and a cup of pencils or "fingerspelling cards" for money; to "kids" calling themselves on relay so they can make up the stupidest calls to hear the relay operator say it; to people telling the blind clerk that the $1 they just given is actually a $10; to the newer scam of using TTYs to call companies to place large orders of expensive merchandise on bogus credit cards.

What can we, people with disabilities, do about it? Because it DOES affect us:

* We get "blacklisted" because of some bad experience a company had so that "anyone with that disability" is the same.

* It'll hurt the true nonprofit agencies when people won't buy fundraising products because they "gave" at the street corner.

* Hard-working people with disabilities are taken advantaged of (as with the blind clerk).

* The general "image" of independence is ruined by jokesters and the general public sees and remembers the negative impressions.

The different things we can do are:

* For "charity" scams - Ask the person for the name, address and phone number of the charity they're fundraising for; ask what percentage of the "gift" will go to administrative costs (should be 35% or less); or at the beginning of the year decide which charity you will donate to and stick to that.

* For "Taking Advantage" scams - A lot of us need to quit our "not my problem" attitude, this goes for both people with disabilities and people without. If you see a scam in action - do something! Sure, you'll say "don't want to get hurt". "it doesn't involve me", "I'm just one person". It doesn't matter, in the long run, scams hurt everyone. Scammers do it 'cuz it's easy, let's all make it harder for them to try eh?

* For "relay pranks" - If you see one of these on a website or blog like YouTube, you can e-mail the host site and ask them to remove the video or blog. Is this a violation of their right to "free speech"? No, because I believe this falls under "damaging to individual interests - libel and slander".

All in all, everyone needs to take a pro-active stance, be aware, be helpful, get educated, be the educator!

Here's some websites to check for any kind of scam:

http://www.snopes.com/

http://www.scamspotters.com/find.html

http://www.bbb.org/alerts/scam.asp