Off Topic, but looking for your help . . . .

As some of you know, besides my crafting sites I also operate a scam education and awareness site called ScamVictimsUnited

There is are currently some bills that are trying to be passed to help protect people from becoming scam victims . . . they are Minnesota bills, but if we get them passed in Minnesota we can then work to get them passed in other states.

We need your help. There are lobbyists that are trying to stop these bills from being passed so we are trying to get as many people as possible to write letters in support of this bill.

Here is a copy of my letter . . . just so you know what we are looking for.  Feel free to copy and paste anything I said in my letter for your own letter.

I am writing to you today to urge you to pass the Minnesota Bills HF0343 and SF0227 in order to help protect innocent consumers from becoming victims of scams. 

In 2002 my husband and I became victims of a counterfeit cashier's check scam while selling a car online. We lost $7200 to this scam. Like many other scam victims, we felt we asked the questions we needed to in order to protect ourselves from fraud, but many of the employees at financial institutions and money transfer companies are not trained to spot the signs of a scam and therefore give out inaccurate information to the consumer which leads them to believe that they are safe and protected.

After the frustration we felt with no place to turn for help and no one that would listen to our story we started the website ScamVictimsUnited.com and in the first two years of it being operational we helped stop over $2 million dollars from going overseas to scams. We did this solely by sharing our story and educating others about these scams and the "loop holes" in the system that work to the benefit of the financial institutions and money transfer companies. While that effort does make us proud of what we have done, we do know that more needs to be done on this issue. 

This is why we feel that these bills MUST pass. This will be the first step in the right direction towards protecting the American people instead of the financial institutions and money transfer companies which are turning a blind eye to this growing epidemic. Every day we see more and more victims coming to our site looking for help, and all we can offer them is the feeling of knowing that they are not alone in this struggle.

Thank you,

If you would like to help, you can find information about the bills by doing a google search for Minnesota Bills HF0343 and SF0227

Here are the names of the people to contact (again, google search the names since I don't want to post email addresses on an open message board)

Representative Joe Hoppe
Representative Joe Atkins
Representative Tim Sanders
Representative Tim Mahoney
Representative Leon Lillie
Representative Mark Murdock
Representative Sheldon Johnson
Representative Steve Simon
Representative Linda Slocum
Representative Terry Morrow
Senator Chris Gerlach
Senator Linda Scheid
Senator Ann H. Rest

Thank you!