Consumers : Auto Owner Should Put the Brakes on Car-Selling Scam

Question: I’ve just had a telephone conversation with my daughter, who moved from Los Angeles recently to the Northeast, and she was telling me about what is apparently a telephone scam that has been tried on her--not once but three times--in the past week. It seemed so concentrated that we are both wondering if it is something that has become nationwide.

She has a late-model car that she is trying to sell and has advertised it in her local paper. In a matter of about five days she had three long-distance calls--two from Florida and one from Nebraska--and the pitch was the same in all cases: The caller claims to maintain a list of pre-screened and pre-qualified buyers for used cars, and each one of them had one particular buyer who wanted to buy her specific car right on the spot.

The first outfit from Florida wanted $249 up front, the second wanted $160 and the one from Nebraska wanted $150. The sale was “absolutely guaranteed” in all three cases or the money would be refunded--except for a “small handling fee and expenses.” In the first case, my daughter was told, the non-refundable fee would be about $40 “plus expenses.”

Fortunately, my daughter didn’t fall for it, but the terrible thought occurred to both of us that some people might . Do you know whether this has spread to California?--J.F.C.

Answer: There’s no evidence that it has, according to Herschel Elkins, senior assistant attorney general in Los Angeles for the state Attorney General’s office, but he’s grateful for the tip.

“The only thing similar that we’ve had,” Elkins said, “was the report of an outfit making an almost identical pitch, but with one difference: This was for a buyer who wanted specific makes and models of cars for export to Japan. The claim was that there’s a big market in Japan for certain cars that aren’t obtainable there. We haven’t been able to make any sort of case, though, because it was more of an inquiry than a complaint anyway.”

We also took the matter up with Andy Itzkovitz, an assistant district attorney in the Miami office of the Florida Attorney General’s office.

According to the consumer services department of the Florida Attorney General’s office in Tallahassee, some dozen complaints--all from outside Florida--have been filed against the first company, the one with the refundable $249 offer and headquartered in Hollywood, Fla. And these were all turned over to Itzkovitz.

(I purposely did not mention the names of the two out of three outfits that your daughter remembered, because both names were meaningless--one had “Tech” in its name and the other had “Nationwide,” both of which could apply to any of several thousand companies with “sound-alike” names that are perfectly legitimate.)

“It’s not a brand-new operation,” Itzkovitz added, “since it’s been around about six months. Apparently they’re not doing too well, though, because they tend to go out of business after a couple of months. And that’s what’s happened to this outfit--it just completely closed up and disappeared a week or so before we had time to subpoena any of their records.”

“It’s the sort of thing,” he continued, “that I think most people see through pretty quickly. These con artists normally concentrate on scams that sound very attractive.

“And that business about the money being ‘refundable,’ ” he added, “reminds me of the old recipe for making rabbit stew: ‘First, you catch the rabbit.’ Lots of luck in finding the company promising the refund.”

Congratulations to your daughter for not falling for this new approach to an ancient trick.

Q: I am angry about the way Montgomery Ward embarrassed me recently by cutting off my credit without telling me about it. I have been a good customer for many years. Recently I decided to purchase a washer, dryer and refrigerator in Pico Rivera. The cashier said, however, there was a problem with my credit card and referred me to the credit department.

Imagine my dismay when I was informed that my credit card account had been closed six months earlier due to two late monthly payments. While the payments may have been late, I have continued to make all monthly payments since then.

I have no recollection of receiving any notification of the closing of my account. Was this embarrassing and humiliating procedure the way to treat a longtime customer? I have paid the balance due on my account and cut up my Montgomery Ward card.--A.M.F.

A: It’s difficult to cut off a customer’s credit gracefully, Tom Hester, Montgomery Ward’s customer relations spokesman in Chicago, concedes. The consumer credit law (Regulation Z) permits the company to lower a customer’s credit line--all the way down to zero--in the case of delinquent accounts, but at the same time, it doesn’t require the company to notify the customer of this. Montgomery Ward does, however, according to Hester.

About two or three months ago, Hester said, your monthly statement undoubtedly contained the notation that your credit line had been reduced to zero, “but there’s a lot of promotional material included on the same statement too, and so it was easy to overlook the warning.”

A study of your individual credit history, Hester says, reveals that “it wasn’t really all that bad” and, as a consequence, he has restored your previous line of credit.

Of course, because you’ve already cut up your card and sent it back, it probably means that you’ll have to reapply for a new card. Rest assured, though, that when you do, Montgomery Ward will be delighted to have you back in the fold.

Campbell cannot answer mail personally but will respond in this column to consumer questions of general interest. Write to Consumer VIEWS, You section, The Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053.