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Caveat
Emptor
by Peary Perry
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All
our lives we’ve heard the phrase….’caveat emptor’ or ‘let the buyer
beware’.
You would think that every scam or ‘good deal’ would have been ferreted
out by now and all of us would be wise to them and just ignore any
attempts to snatch our hard earned money.
I submit to you that the bad guys are still out there, plugging away
at trying one thing after another to get those bucks out of your wallets
and purses.
Let me give you a few examples.
The past few weeks, I’ve been seeing advertisements in the local papers
for ‘free state quarters”. You know… those new quarters, which have
been minted for each state. Here’s the deal…you send in so many (I
think three) postage stamps (to cover the cost of shipping and handling)
and they’ll send you a brand new, uncirculated quarter. Sound like
a good deal? Think again.
I sent in 3 old used, stamps and never heard a thing…..they want new,
unused….or it’s no deal….so you send them $1.11 in unused postage
stamps that they can sell, and you get a quarter in return. Let’s
say the cost of the quarter; their return postage and packaging costs
are something like $.61 total, then they made $.50 for each quarter
they sold. Not a bad deal if you ask me. You wonder how many people
fall for this.
Last night I sit down and am reading the paper, when I see the latest…someone
has a huge advertisement giving away two-dollar bills. That’s right,
free two dollar bills, yours for the asking. These are from some vault
somewhere and have just been found and are yours for the asking. You
can get five, brand new, uncirculated, crisp two dollar bills which
are sure to ‘become collectors items’ just by calling in the toll
free number and then being charged $9.00 for ‘normal processing’ along
with a ‘nominal shipping and handling fee’.
This looks like same song, second verse to me.
First off, two-dollar bills aren’t rare, you can get them at the bank,
you just have to ask for them. They just aren’t popular. They are
still out there.
Second, I’ll give you ten dollars any day of the week if you’ll send
me $15.00 to pay for the ‘processing and handling’ that I charge to
send the ten dollars I owe you back to you in the mail. I’ll even
give you a brand new, uncirculated ten-dollar bill hot off the press
at the mint if you want one, for only fifteen dollars in handling
and processing. Let me know how many you need. I do offer discounts
for large volume customers. Perhaps I could start a ‘bill of the month’
club or something.
The last scam I want to discuss is the current deal on zero interest
car loans. This morning I heard some local dealer yelling at me on
the radio about a super new deal on a new truck for zero interest
for 72 months. Folks that’s six years.
Who keeps a truck or a car for six years? What’s a truck or car look
like after this much time?
If you drive an average of 20,000 miles a year like most of us…then
you’d have vehicle with over 140,000 miles on it by the time you got
finished paying for it…. you looked at the resale value of anything
with 140,000 miles on it lately? Save yourself the time. Don’t do
it.
So what do you think happens? Well, I’ll tell you, by the time you’ve
had the truck or car for about three or four years, you’ll get tired
of it and want a new one. Then when you go to trade it in, you’ll
find out how much more you owe on it and how little it’s worth at
that time. The new car dealer will add the difference into your new
car loan and there you go for another four or five years. If you keep
up this pace, it appears to me that in about ten years that car you
want to buy for about $15,000 will cost you close to $45,000 since
you kept rolling the payments on the unpaid balances forward.
What a deal.
In addition to that, you might get them to throw in five brand new
two-dollar bills. You’ll probably have to shell out another ten or
fifteen dollars in shipping and handling costs to have them mailed
to your house.
Beware; the sharks are still out there looking for you.
© Peary Perry
Comments go to pperry@austin.rr.com
More Letters From North America
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