Local News in Brief : Cash Seized in Sales Scam
Iowa’s attorney general said Friday that his office impounded about $800,000 from a Beverly Hills company selling overpriced grandfather clocks.
Atty. Gen. Tom Miller said more than 10,000 consumers sent checks and money orders to a Clinton, Iowa, address after receiving a post card saying they had won a “world-famous Bentley IX Grandfather clock.” Consumers were asked to send $69.19 for shipping.
The clocks are worth far less than the shipping fee, Miller said, and it was just a scheme to sell the cheap clocks at an inflated price.
“We believe the card was deceptive because it created the impression that the consumer had won the grandfather clock,” Miller said. “The card also seriously overstates the quality of the clock, which is battery powered, pressed wood and plastic.”
Miller said his office filed suit and a consent judgment against Prize Redemption Warehouse of Beverly Hills and a related corporation set up in Iowa, Merchandisers Warehouse Inc., and that no consumer will lose any money.
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