Most of us have made our New Year’s resolutions to lose those extra pounds, pay off bills, spend more time with the family and so on.  You may want to consider adding, “be a smarter consumer” to the list. It does take time to be a well-informed consumer but the consequences of not paying attention can be devastating.

Unfortunately devious folks are hard at work figuring out new ways to relieve you of your hard earned money.  From a few hundred dollars to a person’s life savings being wiped out, these people have no morals and no qualms about taking as much as they can get.

Consider this scam where a desperate sounding phone call from the friend of a “grandson” claiming the grandson is in trouble and needs money.  This is accompanied with a plea, “please don’t tell his mom and dad, it’s so embarrassing and he says only you can help him.”  This scam is designed to tug at your heart and mislead you into sending money through western union, money gram etc., where the money is quickly gone and the scammer laughingly walks away with your money.

Or how about the scam where you get a knock on your door from the “electric company”, with a notice to turn off your service for non-payment -unless of course you pay them “x “ amount of money right now.  The list of scams goes on and on with no end in sight.