Life-Shattering Scams: Could It Happen to You?
It's a show that will have you thinking twice before ever signing on a dotted line again.
Every day there's a new headline about a scam you need to be worried about; scams targeting victims via email, social media, phone, dating sites and even door-to-door. These scammers are after your money and your trust. In this episode you'll get the information you need to keep you, your family and your bank account safe.
Today we're meeting victims who say they were not only left with empty pockets, but broken hearts as well, including a couple who allegedly spent $12,000 on an adoption that never happened, a man who was allegedly robbed of his rights as a father, and a woman who claims she unwittingly signed away the rights to their own child.
Plus, it's a home improvement story gone disastrously wrong. Anderson meets a woman on the brink of bankruptcy after having spent approximately $50,000 to fix up her house. She was told by the contractor it would be two weeks. Almost a year later, and after taking out two loans, she is forced to finish the home herself.
Sometimes they are promising services on your family home, or carrying out the most unthinkable deceptions, like taking a baby away from someone.
Have You Been Victimized by a Fraud or Scam? Share Your Story with Anderson.
Angie from AngiesList.com is sharing the information you need... so you're not the next victim of a scam.
Comments
OMG..I should have been on this show..Single mom of 4..business owner for 22 years..home owner car owner..scammed out of everything by my sociopathic accountant..Now I struggle w PISD..on welfare food stamps..and still caught in the web of deceit in sooo many ways!! There is no hope..its truly hell
Why don't you expose the poor treatment that elderly patients
are getting in hospitals.If an 80+ year old is admitted to a hospital he will likely come out in a box especially if he has
admitted to having signed a Living Will/DNR. Those documents
should be held by a family member not the hospital.
hello Anderson this story happening all most every dsy ..specialy if one women is alone ..or if we trust to much someone ..even from family ..one house i lose from my ex-husband ..anyway the time we live is very bad people thinking to take eazy money or everything ells ..this have to do with bad social-personal -familiar education .
intristing theme
thank you
I watched the show from March 1st. I was scammed several years ago because I didn't know the law or my rights. About 10 years ago I subscribed to Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. and in one year alone they saved me around $5,000.00 and they have also helped me to not make mistakes that I may have made due to contracts that will give you one thing in the big print and take it away in the small fine print. Now before we sign any contract we fax it to an attorney that specializes in that field of law to look over it, he will make the changes so that I can send it to the company/person that wants me to sign it. If they are will to make the changes we will do business with them if not we don't. I can't imagine how much money, time and grief they have saved us for our $16.95 a month. I think everyone should have this and know how to use it right... I tell my friends you don't have any rights if you don't know your rights. With Pre-Paid Legal I can know my rights and make sure I'm not being taken advantage of
I feel for Kristy and what she is going through. But there are a lot of questions going through my mind. SHe should have seen the red flags as soon as she started going out with this loser....if I am going out with someone and he never stays over at my house, strange, I get pregnant and he wants me to abort and then says you can keep the baby but only on my terms WTF, you have the baby and he still doesn't stay with you, off the wall. He gives you a legal document to sign, but only shows you the first page and gives you the signature page to sign, and what do you do, YOU SIGN IT, I seriously doubt anyone would sign the document. Especially since this concerned a human being, your daughter and not selling or buying a used car!!! The normal thing to do would have been to say I need my lawyer to look this over or even better, give me the rest of the pages and I will read it and then make a decision on whether or not I will sign this.....Although what happened to her was awful, she was just naive in thinking that she found her sugar daddy that would take care of her other son and herself!
April...thank you for your comment. I do feel like we have such an amazing adoption and you are right...I am not just an adoptive mom...I am THE mom to our son. And I really hope that is what Anderson meant by his comment but he is a public figure and he needs to be careful that he isn't irresponsible with his comments. I agree in that case of the birth dad on the show...that he was decived and I am really sorry for that and I agree also (even being an adoptive parent in Utah) that some of the laws here do need to change. I am a mother of TWO sons...I would hate for it to be legal for them to be decieved this way...but I have to base my opinion on what is best for this particular child and cannot see how taking him away from the only home and family he knows is the best thing for that little boy. The courts should have made a final decision when he was an infant...not now that he is bonded with his mom and dad.
PLEASE READ THIS!SCAMS THAT ARE COST TAX PAYERS BILLIONS OF DOLLARS!!
One of the on going scams that is costing tax payers billions of dollars is Immigrants getting free medical benefits that they didn't pay a dime for!!! Most of them come in as tourist with legal tourist visa but come in pregnant to have their babies here,which would not be a problem if when asked at the U.S consulates of their country if they are pregnant and have the intension of giving birth here, they honestly say yes but because of their criminal intension of not wanting to pay their medical bills THEY LIE!!! Some are CEO's of their companies in their countries,yet come here and steal from hard working tax payers!!!
This they are able to pull off because the Fed-medi Insurance do little or no investigations about them before granting these CRIMINALS free medical care at the EXSPENCE of HARDWORKING TAX PAYERS of this country!! Because they are able to pull this off they encourage others from their countries to come in and do the same thing!!!
They are CRIMINALS and Should Be Held Liable for their actions against American citizens. If notfor the dedication of American's to their country such ones would not have the ability to pull such crimes off cost us billions of dollars.
If,as an American citizen I cannot get free medical care,without paying for it somehow,how could International criminals from countries like *****ia successfully do that?!
We should fight against this growing trend in this country.
Hearing stories like these are heart breaking! The sacmming industry is a multimillion dollar industry costing both the government and hardworking tax payers a lot of money and pain.
I enjoy your show so much. My husband is going through his third type of chemo for pancreatic cancer; so, ar don't get out much. So, we spend our afternoons together watching your show. Its both entertaining and informative. Thank you so much for being on Tv.
I agree with everyone's comments about Anderson's blunt statement about it always being in the best interest of the child to be with the bio parent over an adoptive parent. My heart sunk when I heard that as I am an adoptive parent to three and know the truths of adoption. There is no 100% true statement for every situation.
As for the couple that said they were scammed by their daughterh's birthmother, I have to disagree. They had an adoption fall through. It happens. And when it does, you risk losing a lot of money. It's the birthparents right to talk to as many people to adopt the child as they'd like b/c they can't sign anything legally binding before birth. Now, they can sign something saying that they wont' accept money from other parties - which is obviously not what the couple requested. That is a silly mistake on their part. They have been through the adoption process already and had to know how important it is to proceed each step carefully and by the law. They weren't "scammed" and it saddened me to hear this adoptive mom say, "You can't trust anyone". I've worked with birthparents who ended up parenting their baby (which is their RIGHT) and didn't tell me until they were giving birth. Did it hurt? Yes? Did it make me question who to trust? Yes? Did I ever think I was scammed? No! It's all part of adoption, which has no guarantees and can be heart breaking at times.
And as for the Utah man, I feel for him but I believe the legal responsibility falls on him. He had unprotected sex with someone who he wasn't legally married to. Putting together a nursery isn't enough. Did he financially support her during her pregnancy? Those laws are there (as they are in many states) in the best interest of the child, so if a non-fit father shows up at the last minute before the adoption takes place, the baby cannot be just handed over to him. He needed to have shown his interest in the child & pregnancy beforehand. One way of doing this is learning what his legal rights would be. Again, I don't think this qualifies as a "scam" but instead as a man who didn't do enough research. Apparently, the birthmother had.
I hope these pepole win there children back. God bless you and your show
Hi, My name is Millie. My husband and I and my daughter and her then husband and my son would go every year, for about 8 or 9 years to an accountant to do our taxes. They had their done too. But this accountant, Robert Van Zandt convinced me and my husband to put my 401 and his 457K into an investment account with him. He assured us that in 2 years we would have our money back, with interest. That was in 2005. We retained a lawyer, with no luck. Then we went to the Attorney General of New York. They are in the process of an investigation. We have NO idea if we will ever see a penny back. This was probably another ponzzi scheme. I just felt so bad for the people today on your show. Sorry. I just had to vent. Thank you.
I do love to watch your show every day. Millie
Anderson, today's show made me so angry. I am a new mother of a 3-month old and to hear another mother get scammed out of parental rights to her child was very difficult for me to comprehend. How did this slimy guy get away with this? It sounds like his wife was also in on the scam and they just wanted a child for themselves. Of course I haven't heard his side of the story, but sounds like he's a liar as he had no problem having a relationship with Kristy while still married. I don't know how the wife can consider hersel*****ood mother knowing she is preventing her daughter from being with her biological mother who never intended on giving her up to begin with. People can easily judge Kristy for signing documents without fully understanding them, but this happens all the time because legal documents are often times difficult to understand. In any event, sounds like the guy was a master manipulator and showed her only certain pages of the document she signed. He knew how to prey on the weak and she was weak for him because she was in love with him.
hey Daisha: i don't know Anderson, so, i don't want to attempt to speak in his behalf, but, the way i understood that statement was if there is a decent and willing parent who wants their child then it would be in the best interest of the child to have the opportunity to live with his biological parent, especially in this case, this guy didn't even know that his ex-gf was giving the baby away without his knowledge. She took any rights he may have had away. Anyway, that's just my take on it and I definately agree with you that not all parent's make good parent's and it sounds like your not an apdoptive parent-your the mom and thank goodness there are people like you out there:)
My name is Alan Oakes I watched your show today it is a good thing that you opened peoples eyes to some of the scams that are out their.But their is so much more about scams that you should have covered. Theirs internet scams real estate scams and Get rich quik scams. How come those warn't covered in todays show? I think that people should be made aware of these type of scams as well.Thanks Alan