Residents report two new telephone scams

Carson City residents are warning others to be alert to telephone offers that sound too good to be true.

Bob Rogers, 70, said he received a phone call Thursday in which the caller offered him a free electric wheelchair.

"He knew everything about me - my name, home address, that I was affiliated with the VA (Veterans Administration)," Rogers said. "Then he said I qualified for a free electric wheelchair, and that he'd send it to me. All I had to do was give him my Medicare card ID number, but I didn't give it to him."

Rogers said he didn't need a wheelchair, but would have liked to have given one to his friend. He sensed that something just wasn't right, however, so he ended up hanging up on the caller.

Eighty-year-old Adele Moore also received a suspicious telephone call on Wednesday.

"It was a woman with an accent. She pronounced my name wrong, but spelled it right," Moore said. "She said because of my good credit and because I paid my bills on time, I qualified for $7,000 from the government. It sounded kind of funny, but I decided to play along."

The woman then asked Moore whether she wanted the money sent by Federal Express or deposited directly into her bank account.

"Then she asked me what I would do with the money, so I told her I'd pay off my mortgage and a couple of other things, so she gave me a phone number to call," Moore said.

The woman was only on the phone with Moore a few minutes, gave her a number to call which had a 202 area code, and told her to ask for a Mark Robinson.

"He gave me basically the same spiel but said, 'We belong to a mission to feed hungry children, and if you send us a check for $99, we'll donate it to the children and send you the $7,000,'" Moore said.

"So I said, 'Will you please send my $7,000 to the needy children?' and he said, 'That's not how it works,' so I said, 'That's how I'd like you to do it,' and I hung up," Moore said.

"I'm from New York, so it's pretty hard to pull one over on me," she said, laughing. "If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is too good to be true."

The Nevada Attorney General's Office had not issued any alerts as of Friday regarding the two scams reported by the Carson City residents.