Rep. Eric Cantor | AP Photo

When right-wing Republicans like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor begins talking up worker “rights,” it’s time to open your eyes and check your pockets. Because that’s about as likely as the Ku Klux Klan beating a drum for affirmative action.

In this case it’s all about overtime pay. Since 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act has required, for most hourly employees, time-and-a-half pay for each hour beyond 40 that are worked in a week.

Cantor, R-Virginia, and his cohorts last week introduced something called the “Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013″ with a slick sales pitch: private industry workers, they argue, should be allowed to take compensatory time off rather than extra pay, an option many government workers already enjoy.

The legislation would give hourly employees the ability to earn comp time (at a rate of 1.5 hours for every hour worked beyond 40 in a week) and take that as paid time off down the road. Each employee would be able to earn no more than 160 hours of comp time a year. Read more »

Chapter 2

I got another phone call Friday morning from Rachel at Cardmember Services, (or Card Services or Cardholder Services) and that resulted in a mini-adventure in learning more about this scam company, how they do what they do, and some measures you  can take to thwart them — or at least, cost them some money.

Here’s Chapter 1, btw.

Caller ID listed the phone number from “Rachel” as 510-335-1032. A Google search revealed that number belongs to Mosaic Networx LLC, a company based in San Rafael, Calif. It’s in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. So I looked upthe main number of Mosaic Networx LLC and called it. It was answered by a voicemail system that said:

“Thank you for calling Mosaic Networx, your single source data communications provider. If you would like to dial your party by name, Press 1.”

Of course I pressed 1, and the robot said, “Enter your party’s first or last name with the telephone keypad.” I punched in the first name “John.” The robot said, “Connecting to Peter Schultz” and then a human answered, “This is Joe.” Go figure. Read more »

The phony check that Hugh Elliott received in the lottery scam | Photo by Eric Brady

Your daily Letter to the Columnist – Dec. 3, 2012

Mr. Casey,

This check scam is alive and well.

I also received a $3,750 check this week at my home in Atmore, AL. I “won” 230K.

I called today and the man who answered told me to go ahead and deposit the check Monday and call him for further info. It appears this scam has been going on for more than five years now with no government intervention.

I plan to report this to local authorities Monday.  Probably a waste of time here also.

My check was from Nasco, 901 Janesville Avenue, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538.  Drawn on Johnson Bank, 245 N. Main,  Racine, WI 53402-3108.   Nasco appears to be a legitimate coupon company.

Thought you may be interested in this info.

Thanks for your time and posting.

Mike D
ATMORE, ALA.

Most of my writing I do at home, where it’s usually quiet and with less distraction. Except for the onslaught of political robocalls during the recently concluded swing-state season, about the only robocalls we get are from “Rachel from Cardholder Services.”

If you’ve gotten these you know that it it works like this: “Press 1 to lower your interest rates now!” — and they connect you to a live person.

“Press 2 and your number will be removed from our records!” — which is untrue. I have pressed 2 at least 50 times. It does no good. These are wholly illegal operations, not only because they ignore the national “Do Not Call Registry” but because they’re also scams.

More than one blogger has written about this, and there’s a very good series of posts about how the scam works and the players behind it here. The bottom line is they’re seeking to charge you $1,000 to $1,500 to act as an intermediary between you and the bank that issued your card, to get the latter to lower the rates. Which you can often do all yourself for free. Read more »

Multnomah County Sheriff/U.S.Marshals

Feast your eyes on John Donald Cody, aka U.S. Navy Veterans Association scammer Bobby Thompson, who gave tens of thousands in campaign contributions to Virginia lawmakers.

He’s a former military intelligence officer and  apparent former Arizona attorney who claimed a degree form UVa.

The Tampa Bay Times has the details:

For all his sterling credentials, colleagues at the courthouse found Cody to be more than a little strange. He wore outdated bell bottoms and his hair in a pompadour that everyone swore was a wig. He’d spout wild conspiracy theories and once accused county prosecutors of wanting to kill him. He’d bring a big jar of Vaseline into the courtroom, then slather it on his face during presentations.

In May 1984, after a judge threatened to cite him for contempt for making false statements, Cody vanished. His Corvette was found at the Phoenix airport weeks later, keys in the ignition.

Prosecutors initially charged Cody with skimming nearly $100,000 from clients’ accounts and trying to get a $25,000 loan in Virginia using false identities. But three years later, in May 1987, a federal warrant was issued for his arrest. In addition to fraud, he was wanted by the FBI for espionage.

Queue the jokes on “military intelligence.”

Germany | Huhu Uet | Wikimedia Commons

The National Lottery Inc. scam letter didn’t fool her

Mr. Casey,

I wanted to thank you for your story.  I have attached the letter I received just like Mr. Elliot.  It was a interesting scam.

I’m one of those who believes if it seems too good to be true it probably is, but this one was a little different from the email scams you always get about winning the lottery.

I had a hard time finding something on the internet about this scam until I came across your column.

It is sad how some people do get scammed.  I think even if I believed it I would of cashed the check and waited until it cleared before sending money.

The letter didn’t state any deadline.

Thanks

Patricia Hart
JACKSONVILLE, N.C.

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Note from Dan: The pdf she sent me of the letter was titled “The National Lottery (in conjunction with Resilite Sports Products Inc.). Otherwise, it was more or less identical to the one sent to Hugh Elliott.

'Bobby Thompson' with House Speaker John Boehner, in the good old days before Boehner became Speaker and before Thompson was charged with running a multi-million fraud.

The U.S. Navy Veterans Association con man whose name remains unknown is still in jail in Ohio. But now he’s facing new charges, and he has a new court-appointed lawyer.

And on Monday, in a Cleveland courtroom, the new mouthpiece actually asked that a judge release the man with no name on $1 million bond.

From Cleveland.com:

[Thompson's new] charges now include identity fraud, engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, complicity to aggravated theft, money-laundering and tampering with records. Thompson was represented today by a new court-appointed attorney, Joseph Patituce, who asked Judge Robert C. McClelland to set bond at $1 million. Patituce noted that the charges are as yet unproven allegations, and said he needed Thompson out of jail to assist in review of more than 150,000 pages of documents involved in the case.

Ha! The request for bond suggests Thompson might actually be able to raise it, despite being caught with nearly $1 million in cash back when he was arrested in Portland.

His new lawyer obviously possesses a healthy amount of chutzpah, given that there is no way in the world any judge would release someone who has thus far refused to disclose his actual identity. If I was his lawyer I wouldn’t have even bothered to make the request.

But it makes you wonder: Where is the storage locker where ‘Thompson’ has his other nest egg stashed? I’d want to bid on that one when the rental comes up overdue.

'Bobby Thompson' with House Speaker John Boehner, one of many Republicans he plied with tens of thousands in campaign cash while he was running the phony charity, U.S. Navy Veterans Association.

That comment, from the alleged con man who won’t reveal his real identity but who is known as “Bobby Thomson,” is one of many interesting tidbits you can find on Cleveland.com.

It’s in comes a story about Thompson’s public defender quitting Thursday, after he went into a 10-minute tirade about Ohio courts’ policy of appointing only one public defender per indigent defendant.

Stanton got removed as Thompson’s attorney during a pretrial hearing in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court after the lawyer delivered a 10-minute tirade about the courts’ ineffectiveness.

Stanton argued that a single attorney would not be enough to represent Thompson, who faces up to 80 years in prison if convicted.

“I reluctantly, begrudgingly and, quite honestly, disdainfully had to file that particular motion,” Stanton exclaimed in front of Judge Annette Butler.

The prosecutor in the case estimated he’s got more than 50,000 pieces of evidence against “Thompson,” who when he was finally caught had a suitcase stuffed with almost $1 million in cash;  and who is charged with defrauding Ohio citizens of more than $2 million through his phony charity, the U.S. Navy Veterans Association. But there’s more! Read more »

From Cafe2.org

Many of you readers love information about scams. Some of the recent ones featured in this column involved asphalt paving and foreign lotteries.

Today, we have yet another deal that seems too good to be true. How would you like to slash your monthly cost of electricity in half, through an energy-efficiency audit?

Sorry to tease you, but experts say that’s highly unlikely. About the best you can expect is 25 to 35 percent, after a potentially significant investment, if your home was built before 1940.

You might have gotten your hopes raised, however, if you received a flyer that’s been making the rounds.
Jeremy Holmes, coordinator of sustainability programs for the Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Commission, recently got one, along with an email, signed “Marcus T, chief strategist.”

He was asking for Holmes’s help in promoting energy-saving audits and weatherization services.
A few things seemed odd about the pitch, though. The first was the line in the email that read, “In fact we are capable of slashing electric bills in half, immediately!”

“That was really unrealistic,” Holmes told me. “If they say ‘we’re going to save half on your energy bill immediately,’ they’re probably lying.”  So we both did some further checking. Read more »

Karl Rove and "Bobby Thompson" | Ohio Attorney General's Office

Update #5: Authorities found a suitcase with almost $1 million in cash and another suitcase full of different identity documents when they searched a storage locker linked to Thompson in Portland. They still don’t know who he is.

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Update #4: Much more about “Thompson’s” capture, his habits, and the room he was letting in Portland, in the Tampa Bay Times.

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Update #3: “United States Marshal Pete Elliott for the Northern District of Ohio was contacted by former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray and asked for his assistance in locating “Thompson.” Note from Dan: This dovetails well with stuff the telephone tipster told me two weeks ago. That called identified ‘Thompson’ by what the tipster said was Thompson’s real name — the initials were K.W. We shall see if that turns out to be the case.

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Update #2: In Portland, he was using the name Anderson Yazzie. He had lived until March 2011 in Boston where he was setting up another scam, in Rhode Island, the “Plymouth Rock Society of Christian Pilgrims.” One of the states in which marshals had tracked him was West Virginia (see the stuff from the tipster I talked to 2 weeks ago, below).

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UPDATE #1: ‘Thompson’ was spotted in Portland, Ore., outside a bar, where officials found him walking with a cane and carrying a knapsack that had an undisclosed amount of money, according to Cleveland.com. He also had a bunch of fake ID with him.

Still no word on his actual identity. Booking photo from Oregon is below

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Update #2: In Portland, he was using the name Anderson Yazzie. He had lived until March 2011 in Boston where he was setting up another scam, in Rhode Island, the “Plymouth Rock Society of Christian Pilgrims.” One of the states in which marshals had tracked him was West Virginia (see the stuff from the tipster I talked to 2 weeks ago, below).

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Little is known so far about the circumstances of the arrest of the fugitive known as “Bobby Thompson,” the false identity of the man who allegedly headed up the U.S. Navy Veterans Association scam.

He was nabbed at 10:30 p.m. Pacific time Monday night somewhere on the West Coast by the U.S. Marshals, based on leads they were working on.

The week before last I had a long conversation with an out-of-state caller who said Thompson was a farmer outside Lewisburg, W. Va. The caller gave me a name, pointed me to a picture on the Internet,  and told me the man was a Navy veteran. But the evidence seemed thin. The man in the photo did not appear to be a dead ringer for ‘Thompson.’ We shall soon see whether that tipster was right.

And it looks like, in the coming months, we will also learn more about the fascinating $55,500 in contributions that ‘Thompson’ made to Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s 2009 election campaign.

Cuccinelli got more than any of the scores of right-wing politicians in the country that Thompson handed out campaign money to. And the big money — a $50,000 check, came in August 2009 after Cuccinelli called Thompson and asked him for a donation.

You can bet that the feds are going to want to know all about that, as well as more about how ‘Thompson’ engineered a law through the Virginia General Assembly that would allow him to continue scamming Virginians.

In the comments below, tell us the questions that you would ask the alleged scammer, if you were a federal agent.

ABC News | Multnomah County Sheriff/U.S.Marshals