Real Estate Fraud

A recent story about real estate fraud gives us good reason to explain to consumers:

§ Do your due diligence before purchasing a property

§ Remember, there should only be one mortgage on property at a time

§ Do a title search on the property to see who it is registered to

§ Verify that the proper mortgage is in place with the correct lending institution

Bogus Charity Season

Charity season is upon us, and there can be a few unscrupulous few bogus charities that show up on your doorstep. Here are a few good tips from a recent Vancouver Province article:

8. Don't contribute unless information is given on how the money will be used and the percentage of donation that will actually reach the given cause.

9. If receiving a charity request by e-mail, check the address it came from. A real charity should have domains like .org, .com or .net, and not from free providers such as hotmail, yahoo or gmail.

10. Deal with a charity that has had a long history, rather than one that has sprung up for a particular disaster.

Source: Vancouver Province

Telemarketing do-not-call list to be in operation Sept. 30

The long anticipated do-not-call list will be in operation in Canada as of September 30, 2008 according to the CRTC.

To put their numbers on the list, Canadians will be able to log on to the official website: www.LNNTE-DNCL.gc.ca as of Sept. 30, or call 1-866-580-DNCL (3625).

For the hearing impaired, the toll-free number will be 1-888-DNCL-TTY (1-888-362-5889).

For the curious, here is a list of companies and organizations who are exempt from being put on the list:

Calls made on behalf of organizations or made for certain purposes as listed below, are exempt from the National DNCL rules:

• registered charities;
• political parties;
• nomination contestants, leadership contestants or candidates of a political party;
• opinion polling firms or market research firms conducting surveys when the call does not involve the sale of a product or service;
• general circulation newspapers calling for the purpose of selling a subscription; to a consumer who has an existing business relationship with the organization; and to business consumers.