Moses Lake seniors receive suspected financial scam letter

MOSES LAKE — A collection of seniors in Moses Lake reported receiving letters early this week that are suspected of being a financial scam.

Moses Lake Senior Center Director Carry Liles said a member of the center approached her with a four-page letter she received from an organization called The Seniors Center. The name of the organization caused confusion for the recipient as to whether the letter came from the Moses Lake Senior Center. Liles said the Moses Lake Senior Center has nothing to do with the letter, which asks for donations for a “grassroots campaign” to “support legislation that will protect the Social Security Trust Fund.”

Liles said she asked around the senior center and found others had received the same letter.

“We have nothing to do with this,” Liles said. “It’s asking our seniors for money and it’s a scam.”

Liles said she contacted law enforcement after reviewing a copy of the correspondence. She said she was informed the organization is not doing anything illegal, but she feared senior citizens could be deceived into thinking the donations being solicited were going to the Moses Lake Senior Center, when in fact they are not.

A review of a copy of the letter shows the organization, The Seniors Center, addresses the recipient by name and begins by thanking the person for “completing your Grant County Referendum below.” The “referendum on Social Security” asks the letter recipients to vote whether they support legislation that would protect Social Security and require “all of the money that has been ‘borrowed’ and replaced with worthless IOUs” to be paid back.

Following the "referendum" is a four-page letter to each recipient, which states the recipient has been “specially chosen to represent Grant County in this National Referendum on Social Security.” The letter repeatedly asks the recipient to send a $22 donation by mail that would allow the sender to send another 45 "referendums on Social Security" to others across the country.

The letter also indicates The Seniors Center is a program of Our Generation, which it identified as 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization.

Our Generation is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and has a rating of “F” from the Bureau. The BBB shows the business has had six complaints filed against it and has failed to respond to two.

“Mailings sent to seniors from The Seniors Center in 2015, identified as a program of Our Generation Inc., seek contributions to assist programs to preserve the program,” an excerpt from the Better Business Bureau’s review of Our Generation reads. “Complaints in BBB files indicate difficulty in removing parents from the mailing lists, repeated contacts, and the alleged use of scare tactics in the mailings."

In addition, BBB information indicates consumers had reported receiving a mailing from the Council for Retirement Security that arrives in the form of a “census survey,” much like the “referendum” received by Grant County seniors this week. The mailing was "not connected with the federal government’s national census that was taking place at the same time, but is a private, non-government solicitation,” the BBB reported.

The Better Business Bureau offers information and tips to help seniors and their caregivers avoid being victimized by scams. The BBB has different tips for spotting heartstring scams, house and home scams, investment and financial scams, and windfall scams.

The following tips are among the precautionary measures the BBB recommends for seniors:

Never wire money to anyone unless you have confirmed their identity.

If you are at the door or on the phone with a high-pressure sales person and you’re uncomfortable, hang up or close the door. If you feel threatened, call the police.

Be suspicious if you win a contest you didn’t enter.

Do not give out personal information over the phone, by mail, by email or in person to someone you don’t know well.

It’s OK to hang up the phone if you feel uncomfortable.

Don’t make a purchase or give a deposit at your door. Take time to think about it. A legitimate deal will still be there tomorrow.

For more information on the different types of scams and steps to take to avoid them, visit www.bbb.org/wisconsin/programs-services/savvy-senior-scam-center.