EOE — ———

Page 8 -- Over The Edge -- April 1, 1997

Exploitation of the Elderly by Companies Offering Cash Prizes

W. James Dickinson

In the past month | have
been immersed in a family
crisis involving my elderly
mother and = several
companies who have
swindied her out of a
large portion of her life
savings.

My mother and her
husband are in their late
seventies and live outside
of Innisfail, Alberta. What
started as a harmless

VG

vace Gou've just ae
4/00, 600 but dou mus
Send us the

#Jooo GST to.

pastime turned into a
financial disaster when
she started to answer
mail-outs that told her
that she was a confirmed
winner in a lottery or
sweepstakes. We have
identified two companies
that offered goods at
outrageous prices to
qualify for cash prizes that
never paid out. Another
company told her that she
had won $100000 but she

needed to send them the
$7000 GST to be able to
release her funds. I've
been in touch with the
RCMP and Project Phone

Busters (Ontario Provincial’

Police) and they have a
growing file including
Procan, Home- and
Business Suppliers as well
as Columbia Group Inc.
All of these Montreal
based companies took
large sums of money from

WonbERFUL!

ONE CALL
COULD
SAVE YOU

AYEAR

IN YOUR

MOVE TO

MANAGEMEN

T CMA

Managing Your Future

my mother.

now have control of my
mother's financial affairs
and found that she had
spent the equivalent of
ten years’ savings for a
hard working family. My
contact at the bank in
Innisfail also tells me that
there are other elderly
clients that are going into
the bank and taking out
large bank drafts (approx.
$5000 each) addressed to
the above companies.
They can not approach
family or police because
of client confidentiality.
There is an unidentified
woman who has
completely emptied her
life savings and _ still
believes that there is a
large cash prize about to
be delivered to her.
bank has not been able to
convince her that she is
being taken advantage
of. This is appalling to
witness and it is impossible
to get the money back
once it is sent. The
parasitic companies just
move, change _ their
names and phone
numbers and set up a
fresh scam. It's almost

The -

impossible to prosecute.

What is most disturbing
about this is the insidious
way that the victims
protect the offending
companies and keep their
spending secret from the
families. It is almost a
perfect set-up. They get
the old people to send
money, they give them
just enough reinforcement
to build their hopes
winning the big one and
they play on hoarding to
help keep the secret. It is
hard to expose it for what
it is.

James Dickenson is a
cartoonist in Prince
George, B.C.

ite the Certified

ance Examination

nts of British Columbia

gtd Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 4W7
«com e-mail: cmabe@emabe.com