Opportunists Knock: Fraud Against the Elderly

Remember the classic 4th-grade pea green soup joke (What'd you have for [breakfast, lunch, dinner]? Pea green soup. What'd you do in bed last night? Pea green soup.) I was reminded of that joke, oddly enough, while watching this Better Business Bureau produced effort on protecting the elderly against various scams. What do you do when approached by [a charity, "prize"-awarding telephone pitches, come-ons for medical cures, or insurance solicitations]? Pea green soup? No. Call the Better Business Bureau. For every situation presented in this program, the answer is monotonously the same: call the Better Business Bureau. Decent advice, to be sure, but I'm not entirely convinced that the BBB would be my best first choice to call when presented with an alternative medical treatment. However, the warnings here about traveling home-repair scam artists ("that chimney is lookin' mighty dangerous, maam"), advice to check out how much of your charity dollar goes to charity and how much to administration, and heads-up on itty-bitty prizes with whopping shipping & handling charges are worth the relatively low price. Recommended, with some reservations over the constant haranguing to "call the Better Business Bureau" for everything from soup (including, one suspects, pea green) to nuts. (R. Pitman)