Dear Editor:
It would be a community service if the Wellington Advertiser would accept reports of scamming from the area and have a small section in the newspaper where people could read about the scams.
It is heartbreaking to watch on YouTube stories of women and men being scammed and how organized this scamming is. One woman in BC killed herself in desperation to get out of the mess of being scammed.
I have first-hand experience where I heard by way of speaker phone, a scammer ordering my husband to go up and get his Visa/bank card immediately. The person on the phone turned into a harsh intimidating character which made me very angry. I imagine a vulnerable person at the other end becoming intimidated and frightened and doing what they ask. This is wrong, corrupt and evil. We get regular calls from scammers who we do not respond to.
Secondly, Marketplace is reporting a scam that attacks vulnerable Canadians, the aged and those with disabilities. They approach door-to-door and offer services to repair thermostats, floors, maintenance problems and then get the vulnerable to sign an agreement which allows them to take out a mortgage on their house at a rate of 25% with the goal to take over their home and they have done so to many people.
Will you please look into this and report on it in your newspaper? Marketplace reported a number of places where people have already been scammed and are in some cases, losing their homes to these crooks. They also do terrible maintenance jobs and left one woman without a spout in her bathtub to take a bath, others gaps in their backsplash at the top.
These are elderly people or in one case, an elderly person and a military man with PTSD. It is shameful that the Trudeau government is not going after this organization. They call themselves the Black Axe and they are worldwide but have centres in Toronto and Vancouver. They listed many places where people have been scammed already like Barrie and Collingwood.
Please research it yourself. You can see the reporting on You Tube.
Thank you for what you have done in reporting these injustices and warning local Canadians about the scams that are destroying Canadian lives.
Carolann Krusky,
Fergus