Savvy communities protect against shark attacks

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What’s the common denominator of the following familiar scenarios:

• Home Depot believes that you missed this fabulous offer on your last hundred visits so the security guard now circles it in pink. Your opinion may be so valuable as to make you  eligible for a drawing and the potential for a $5,000 gift card! Who knew? Does anyone believe this? Their motive, of course, is getting your e-mail address and lots of information for even more data mining.

• Cell phone companies constantly hawk offers for a “free” phone. The motive, of course, is the two-year contract. 

• Chase, currently one of the largest and most successful banks in the world, sent this e-mail on September 11th.

Dear T Edlin,

We’re excited about changes that are coming soon to your Chase card.

To be one of the first to know more about these features, enroll in Chase Online. If you’re already enrolled and would like to update your contact information or change your User ID or password, log on now.

Stay tuned for more details on these exclusive new features, coming this fall.

The news that excited them was raising the interest rate to 14.99% and rolling my zero percent balance into the new rate because I neglected to read, and act upon, the fine print. Exciting? You bet. Corpses may revive at the prospect of charging 14.99% while paying historically low rates for funds.

Chicago Transit Authority billboards reflect our desperate times. Here’s a sample from SMP Advance Funding, LLC

SMP provides cash advances to individuals who have pending workers compensation claims, personal injury cases and other lawsuits. We understand and respect the problems and financial strains associated with being involved in a lawsuit. Often claimants need help to pay for the necessities of life while their case progresses. SMP offers financial assistance to individuals while they are awaiting resolution of their claims. We provide a free case evaluation to determine our level of investment in your case. There are no credit checks, no monthly payments, no employment verification and no collateral held.

To the uninitiated, this may sound caring, perhaps even warm and fuzzy. Any organization that lends on the basis of a pending lawsuit with no credit check or income verification is as warm and fuzzy as a shark.

Bottom Feeders

These are examples of the lowest common denominator. Some corporations,  bereft of good ideas, rely on people not bothering to read the fine print. The large print giveth and the fine print taketh away, says an experienced banker. Preying on the ignorant and desperate is a strategy to prop up the bottom line at some poor sucker's peril. Eligibility to win a lot of money just for your opinion is a blue-sky lure.

Scams are so rampant that the public trust has been squandered and won’t be easily regained. Does anyone, other than the banking lobby, really believe that we don’t need a consumer protection agency? Until that is in place, savvy, strong, resilient communities can help each other spot scams and inoculate against them.