Linda Carmody, president/CEO of the Central Indiana Better Business Bureau, Inc. (Greene County Daily World/Nick Schneider) [Click to enlarge]

She is deeply concerned and frankly gets mad when Hoosiers get taken in by a variety of identity theft, bogus sweepstakes deals or other product scams that are currently being practiced by unscrupulous crooks.

"I do get frustrated. I want to expose them. There are companies that are hitting Indiana right now," she stressed.

One recent victim is Doris, who lives in Anderson.

She got a call from a sweepstakes company congratulating her on being a $2.5 million winner.

Doris was directed to wire the firm $150. She did it.

They called her back again and said they forgot about an international processing fee and asked her to wire $1,500.

The crooks even were so brazen as to read passages from the Bible with this elderly lady on the telephone after she told the caller that she had been to church when she missed a call earlier in the day.

"They (the crooks) are good, She was persuaded eight different times to wire money. She wired them over $11,000. That's how persuasive, that's how slick they are," Carmody said.

Doris called the Better Business Bureau and told her sad story -- but it was too late.

"These crooks don't care. They get the money and that is all that matters," Carmody stated.

Carmody pointed out that sweepstakes scams -- like the one that took Doris -- are very popular and too many people, especially the elderly, fall prey to them.

With these scams many times a counterfeit check is enclosed with a notification letter to cover what the company calls "up-front fees." The victim is asked to deposit the "worthless," but authentic-looking check into their bank account. Then, they are asked to wire the same amount of money back to the sweepstakes company. They are told that when the upfront fee is received, the remainder of the winnings will be forwarded.

Common amounts for this scam is $1,500 to $2,500.

"He (the victim) deposits the check, the bank processes the check and it comes back as counterfeit and he's out the money he wired. It is virtually impossible to catch these crooks," she said.

Name brokering is a huge business around the globe, according to Carmody.

"If I'm a senior citizen and I fall for one of these scams, that information is very, very valuable to all of those other scam artists. So my information is sold, sold and re-sold. What the crooks actually call that person if I'm the one who falls for it (the scam), I'm a sucker. I go on the sucker list and that is what they love," she stressed.

Her advice on any kind of offers is "if you have to pay upfront money don't do it."

"It's against the law for a company to say you have won and ask you to pay. If you have to pay upfront, whether it's for employment, a sweepstakes, lottery or anything else, it's a scam," Carmody said. "Unemployment is a serious issue in this country. So there are these shysters that send letters because they monitor Monster.com and Careerbuilders.com. They are going to call you and enclose a check -- which of course is counterfeit -- and say they want to hire you as a mystery shopper. It's one of the fastest growing scams right now. Your first job is to shop either Money Gram or Western Union. You are going to report back to them your experience with the wire service. The consumer wires the money -- after depositing the bogus check in their bank account -- and it's gone."

Identity theft remains a growing problem.

"Identity theft is huge with the economy the way it is, the people who don't have good credit wants somebody else's credit that is good," she said. "One of the things we encourage people to do is to take advantage of getting that credit report every year."

A credit report can be obtained at no charge online by going to www.annualcreditreport.com.

"You are allowed one a year. There is no cost. They will try and get you to sign up for things, but you don't have too," she explained. "You do have to pay a nominal fee if you want to get your credit score."

Carmody explained that the game the identity thief will play is pretty simple.

"They will steal your credit card, your checking account number or whatever they need. Then they will call the credit card company and say I just moved so will you send my bill to my new address. The person who really has the credit card really has no idea of what has happened."

Carmody pointed out that unraveling the financial damage done by one of these scams literally takes hours, weeks and months to straighten out.

"It's not one of those crimes that you are innocent until you are proven guilty. You are guilty until you are proven innocent," she stressed. "It can be a pain."

She cautioned against a popular offer out there from freecreditreport.com.

"The last time I checked they had an unsatisfactory record. They had the Better Business Bureau's lowest rating," she said.

The Central Indiana Better Business Bureau, Inc. is a private not-for-profit organization that monitors business and charities, they do investigations, and also process hundreds of consumer complaints each year. The BBB also conducts mediations, artbitrations and reviews media advertisements.

The so-called consumer watchdog group covers 46 counties -- including Greene, Clay and Putnam counties.

Members of the BBB -- who pay an annual fee -- agree to follow a series of rules, stipulations and decisions handed down by the organization. The fee ranges from $395 to about $2,000 -- based on the number of employees.

Carmody said it is much more than paying the fee to become a BBB member.

Last year, the BBB had 41 of the companies who were declined membership after an application.

Investigation showed they were not able to join. There were 14 other companies in Central Indiana whose BBB membership was revoked in 2007.

"We have hundreds and hundreds of companies that simply don't qualify and we never contact them to join," she added.

Unfortunately, the BBB remains very busy processing complaints -- which amount to more than 10,000 filed last year.

"Our services are much more in demand than they have ever been. Our services are free for the customers because the ethical business community is paying for it," she said.

Carmody said she's been with the BBB for more than 30 years and while the scams are frustrating to her, the majority of Hoosier businesses are good and ethical.

"We like to think of ourselves as the standards people because the businesses who are accredited by us have to abide by 14 standards. We report on charities and whether they meet 20 standards. We have standards for advertising," she explained.

Carmody remains confident there are more good businesses than bad ones.

"Even with all of the crap that I see, I still firmly believe there are more good, ethical businesses than not. We take this responsibility very seriously. If a little old lady is going to spend $1,500 wiring money to a company thinking she can stuff and address envelopes in her home and contribute to her family she ought to be able to do it without fear. The bottom line is why not check it out with the Better Business Bureau first," she said.

The BBB can be contacted online at www.bbb.org or they can call toll-free at 1-866-INDYBBB.