Scam That Obama To Pay Utility Bills Making Rounds

The South Bend (in) Tribune ^ | Staff

[njslim]

OSCEOLA -- It's a new scam, said the Better Business Bureau. President Barack Obama is not offering to pay your utility bills.

In the scam, which recently hit Michiana, consumers are being contacted in person and through fliers, social media and text messages with claims that Obama is providing credits or applying payments to utility bills.

People are then asked to provide their Social Security and bank routing numbers in order to receive the money. In exchange, they are given a phony bank routing number that they are told will pay their utility bills

[nascarnation]

to win the votes of college students and their parents.

I think that would only buy votes that he'd get anyway. And further energize the opposition.

[Cyber Liberty]

That little tiny click you hear, like a watch enveloped in cotton, is the sound of my heart breaking for the fools who thought this was true and bit the hook.

[HangThemHigh]

"How is this more of a scam than what Obama is actually doing?"

This one might be good as the suckers that fall for it will have the power turned off well before the election. Nothing helps clear the senses like meditating in the dark.

[Mr Apple]

How is this more of a scam than what Obama is actually doing?

Haha good one (but quite true!)

[RegulatorCountry]

There are a lot of peculiar scams and rumors going around in the black community, and some of them defy all reason as to purpose.

A little over a month ago, an old friend who happens to be black called me up to ask my honest opinion about something involving his sister, a very successful real estate agent who owns several homes outright and is in excellent shape financially.

It seems that she had been convinced to exchange a large amount of money from dollars to Iraqi dinar, because the value was purportedly going to skyrocket, to the tune of 1,000%. He tried to convince her otherwise but she'd have none of that. He called me because he knew that I had been having some success with foreign currency-denominated CD programs, and he wanted to know what I thought.

I told him that it would take an unusual confluence of events and miraculous timing to even come close to doubling your money, let alone 1,000%, that such an astronomical rate of return is not possible short of a full on collapse of the dollar, and would not be all that likely even then. i told him it sounded like a scam, but I couldn't honestly decipher who profited from it, and asked him to delve further.

It turns out that this had been going around her church, with many in the congregation getting involved, we're talking life savings levels here, and not just that but the church itself. And, it gets worse, many, many churches were into it too.

I asked him to see about some means of getting their currency exchanged with as little loss as possible. There was no third party taking a cut, these folks were just independently exchanging dollars for dinar, very secure and confident in the belief that they had been provided inside information that was going to make them very wealthy.

Financial scams often target churches, racial considerations aside. Large amounts of money, trusting individuals who rarely have any amount of financial sophistication to sniff out the BS in time to avoid getting taken.

A scam is a scam and they've always been around, but this was an odd one and I still don't get who benefited. I told my friend that if the thing got spread around and enough people fell for it, that they might have some stray chance of profiting, but that that was doubtful at best.

Weird.

[Major Matt Mason]

President Barack Obama is not offering to pay your utility bills.

Yet.

[Beave Meister]

I thought the “In lieu of a wedding gift donate to the Obama campaign” was a scam.......it wasn’t.

[PhxTM06]

This. Having worked in sales, I can tell you that its really not possible to overestimate the stupidity of a considerable amount of people out there. I almost wished I hadn’t had the experiences I’ve had as its soured me a lot on people considerably, the average person is a lot more ignorant than I ever imagined and scams like these catch on frequently because of two primary factors.

A. Many people are willing to buy into-feel-good scams because it “feels” right, as a society we’ve turned away logic and become far too “feelings” dependent, kind how we ended up with a president who hadn’t run so much as a lemonade shack prior to entering the highest executive office in the land.

B. Many people are lazy, they prefer to let someone else do the thinking for them rather than research something themselves, they’re happy living in a particular bubble and seldom want to step outside their comfort zone.

Scams like this will continue to go on and on and on as long as there are suckers to be had out there and from what I’ve seen, the supply has yet to meet the demand out there.

[daniel1212]

http://obamaphone.net/

 

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The Obama Phone Program

What exactly is the free Obama phone? The free Obama phone is a program that is meant to help the financially unstable who cannot afford access to a cell phone. Communication should not be limited to people in relation to what they are able to afford. The Lifeline program was actually created decades ago to help low income families have access to land lines. Over the years the cost of cell phones and cellular service has decreased and the program has been extended to cover cell phones.

[SaraJohnson]

One what to demoralize his gimme girls is to release a bunch of promises he’s making to give them free stuff by next month. Free utilities, free houses, free money, free collectable sneakers, free tooth brushes, free lollypops, a chicken in every pot...it’s all coming next month. Git in line early; supplies are limited!

[Carry me back]

The gov’t is paying for blacks houses and cars right now. Obama doesn’t have the power he thinks he has, he’s just a front man and can be removed whenever they want. Keep the faith ! The president doesn’t have nearly all the power. Congress and others do.

[Gaffer]

I don’t look at it so much as a ‘scam’ per se. The way I see it, these Obama voters likely got the money they’ve been scammed out of from US. If that’s the case, I’d rather have an up-front criminal keep the money, buy a Ferrari, etc. do some good for the economy than a useless leech get it and go out and buy lottos, a Forty, and some Newports.

[Grampa Dave]

Good.

The less money Obama’s supporters have, means they have less to donate to local rats and to their beloved Obama.

We average about 5 to 8 scam phone calls aday. The scammers lately are pushing credit card help, mortgage help and other financial help.

Of course they need you SS #, a credit card #, your birthday and your Mother’s maiden name to “help” you.

A friend tells them he is Nicholas Claus, and he was born on 4 July any year he feels like, and his mother’s maiden name is Holder. Then he gives them the local DA’s fraud hotline as his real phone #. If they call back, their call is forwarded to the DA’s number.

[Terry Mross]

If someone was running for president who truly wants to win they’d run ads of the woman saying obama was going to pay her mortgage and fill her tank then point out that he had broken his promise. Then add that he’s now promising to pay utility bills but he won’t pay those either. If.....

[blf1776]

Obama utility bill scam hits Lafayette

Updated: Monday, 16 Jul 2012, 12:11 AM EDT
Published : Sunday, 15 Jul 2012, 9:58 PM EDT
Holly Campbell

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Thousands have already fallen for the scam that leads people to think the Obama administration will pay off utility bills up to $1,000.00.

One local family that fell for the scam says they thought it was a miracle but now paying back all those bills is a nightmare.

“It’s just all a game to somebody, you know, we’re talking about our lives, our family, our home, our kids and that’s the hardest part for me,” Amy Turner said.

Amy Turner and her husband Frank say they heard about an Obama Administration grant that was helping people pay their utility bills from a close family friend. Turner says they were given a routing number and says they were told the account number to use was on the back of their social security cards. Turner says they paid all their bills and it seemed like a miracle.

“When my husband called and used the routing and account numbers I would have thought if they didn’t coincide in some way that it would be impossible to get a confirmation number and not only that but to call back and ask what your balance is and they say your balance is zero,” Turner said.

One of those companies was Tipmont REMC in Tippecanoe County. Tipmont REMC CEO Tim McCarthy says this is the first case of the scam he’s seen and all return check fees were waived for this family.

Turner says they found out the Obama grant, as they called it, was a scam from an article about the routing number they’d been using. Turner says she wants everyone to know that even skeptics sometimes fall victim to scams.

“I just hope it doesn’t happen to anyone else. That’s my thing, I just feel like I was made a fool of,” Turner said.

Turner and her husband now have the burden of paying all their bills that they thought were paid off.

Turner says she lives by the motto ‘if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is’ but says the convincing confirmation of zero balances for their bills fooled her this time.

Turner says the routing number she used was 124085024.